BY MICHELINA ANDREUCCI
The radio came of age during World War I (1914–1918), when military leaders recognized its significance for communicating with the infantry and ships at sea. Several advancements were made during the War to the radio making it more compact and yet powerful.
At first the radio was used mainly as a medium of pastime, not taken seriously until governments saw its potential for information.
Tested during war time, it soon became one of the most outstanding industrial design objects of the post-World War I period. Radio broadcasting was used as a unique medium for mass communication.
From 1904 to 1914 better transmission and reception of voice and music resulted through the invention of the “diode” and “triode vacuum tubes”.
On 23 December 1900, Reginald Fessenden became the first person to successfully transmit audio “wireless telephony” over a distance of about 1.6km. In 1906, he became the first person to make a public radio broadcast from Massachusetts, USA, which was heard from ships at seaat sea.
It was the first transmission of what is known as amplitude modulation or AM radio, which enabled more than one station to send signals. Since it was Christmas Eve, Fessenden played “O Holy Night” on his violin, during the broadcast and read a passage from the Bible.
in 1901, Emil Berliner and Eldridge R. Johnson, founded the Victor Talking Machine Company and introduced the stylish cabinet which concealed the speaker horn and turntable mechanism. A superior version introduced in 1907 transformed the gramophone into a popular household item, which was imitated later by radios and set the trend for television sets, and used well into the 1950s.
An Old Vintage Radio On November 2, 1920, the first commercial radio station went on the air in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It initiated the radio revolution regarded as the “Golden Age of Radio” which lasted from early 1920s to late 1940s, when the introduction of television brought in a new era of family entertainment.
During its Golden Age, the radio evolved from a simple contrivance in a bulky box to an intricate piece of equipment, housed in beautiful wooden cabinets. Much as in Zimbabwe, people would gather around the radio to listen to the latest news and radio plays. It occupied a similar position as today’s television set, dominating the lounge and people’s attention.
The first radio news program was broadcast from Detroit, Michigan, On August 31, 1920, and still continues today as an all-news station under the CBS network. On October 14, 1920, Wendell King, an African-American student from Union College, Schenectady, New York, began broadcasting from the college radio station in America.
By August 1947, the first public entertainment was broadcast in the United States with a series of concerts aired on Thursday nights. Initially heard within a 160 km radius and later increased to 1,600 km radius. Sports broadcasting also began at this time with the broadcast of a 1921 college football game between West Virginia vs. Pittsburgh.
In 1912, Marconi opened the world’s first purpose-built radio factory in Chelmsford, England; and in 1922 commenced broadcasts regular entertainment from the Marconi Research Centre at Writtle, England.
New industrial objects for home and leisure became symbols of the “new” renaissance period in 1950s Europe; the radio and television gave a typical 50s carefree image to life. The radio, especially in Africa and Zimbabwe in particular, became a source of knowledge, information,
entertainment, domestic pride and a forum for public education and national debate.
In Africa today, radio is the dominant and most important mass-medium of information in terms of the number of people that it reaches.
Yet radio is less developed in Africa than it is anywhere else in the world, with much variation between African countries in access to and use of radio. In Zimbabwe approximately 32% of the population are estimated to own radios.
FM transmission dominates the African radio landscape, although it is usually restricted to a country’s boundaries; it has however, the advantages of affordability and clarity.
Radio is uniquely suited to the African context which is predominantly non-literate and has communal living patterns.
There are relatively few radio stations in each of Africa’s 53 nations and fewer radio sets per head of population, despite the considerable growth shown by television, A vintage radio advertisement especially in the 1990s.
Its auditory aspect, portability, and low cost, makes radio particularly suitable for local environment.
Radio, has become the most widely used medium in Africa, where the weekly reach is estimated to range from around 50% of adults in the poorer countries, to close to 100% in the more developed ones. Radios continue to outstrip both television and the press in reaching the majority of the people on the Continent in general, and Zimbabwe in particular.
Michelina Andreucci is a Zimbabwean-Italian researcher. She is a published author in her field. For comments E-mail:linamanucci@gmail.com
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