EOTO: THE RADIO

- June 30, 2020

We look at the radio as a dated form of broadcasting. Do Generation Zs even know how to tune a radio? When was the last time I got in my car and actually listened to the radio? I could not even tell you.

These are questions I thought about when I decided to write about the impact the first radio had on American politics. The radio paved the way for communications and generated a platform for citizens to actually know what was going on in the world without waiting for the daily paper. The radio also created a way for ideologies to form and voices to be heard.

“Radio is the theater of the mind” -Unknown

Originally created in 1879 by Guglielmo Marconi as a bulky and poor reception tool that generated Morse code to ships, the radio became popular in the 1920s. The first operating station was formed in Pittsburg in 1922 and it was an instant success. The earliest broadcasts of radio were used to inform on foreign affairs. At the time, the world was dominated by telegraphs and telephones, the idea of wireless communication seemed futuristic. Some engineers and scientists decided to put the idea to work. The way radio works is as follows:

Electrons move through a wire and create a magnetic field. Place another wire near the first and electrons will start to move in the second wire too. The signal travels between the wires because the magnetic field formed by the first wire — the transmitter — creates an electric field in space, which in turn creates a magnetic field, and so on, moving outward at the speed of light. When the second wire — the receiver — picks up that signal, the field is converted back into the motion of electrons, detectable as an electric current. In order to carry information, the transmitted signal has to vary over time.

Fast forward a few years and the government begins to realize the full potential radio can have. Not only is the radio a new platform for communication and ideas, but it also brings the entire country together. It created social cohesion and brought together people of all different socioeconomic classes. Radio broadcast reflected new ideas that could be shared on a wide scale and well as created political prowess and updates that allowed the country to join together. Also, it paved the way for consumer culture with two-thirds of broadcasting radio carrying advertisements by 1941.

Radio also impacted politics and created a forum for ideologies to form. American citizens were able to be well informed on political topics and experience them in real-time. Emotions could be felt and voices heard, something print could not fully deliver.

Since the creation of the radio, the entire world has been impacted and its technologies have generated advances that have changed the world.

“Perhaps no invention of modern times has delivered so much while initially promising so little.” -Gugliotta

Radio in America, from Its Invention to Telstar