ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the development of radio, the first electronic medium, from the discovery of electromagnetic radiation – the broadcast ‘airwaves’ – to how it became a mass medium. After First World War, the British-owned Guglielmo Marconi Company sought to strengthen its position as the leader in long-distance radio communication. When radio went beyond point-to-point communication to point-to-multipoint communication, or broadcasting, the 1912 legislation was no longer adequate to regulate commercial radio. Both electrical telegraphy and electrical telephony were designed and used as systems to facilitate point-to-point communication. Most people acquire radios when they buy a car, but few radios are bought for homes or dorm rooms. The future points to a world where mobile listening is done on ‘now media’ devices that deliver audio on a smartphone via streaming or in an automobile, where the dashboard has become Internet connected and therefore allows easy access to non-broadcast audio services.
