ABSTRACT
In the historical moment at which a new invention is being pioneered it tends to take upon itself an aura of social salvation. In the case of instruments of communication, the technology itself is only one part of the invention which depends upon a complex of societal links. As the radio industry developed in the 1920s the institutions and cultural decisions fitted into the notions about the shape of society, its ideals, its economics that prevailed at that moment. The growth of the cinema had been far less problem-ridden than broadcasting. As the BBC grew, firmly wedded to its ideals which were simultaneously the source of its rockhard security, in the struggle against people who wanted a commercial system, or a free political system or a government-controlled system or who simply disliked monopoly, it wove an entirely new cultural environment around the inhabitants of British mass society.
