Radio has had a long history. According, to our class lecture it all started with Marconi in 1895. While he only sent Morse code it was still considered the first truly wireless transmission. In the 1900, the audion was created by Reginald Fessenden in order to amplify the weak AM signal, but he did not understand his invention. A few years later Edwin Armstrong created the Regenerative circuit which amplified the AM signal even more. Fessenden then copied Armstrong’s technology and called it the oscillating audion. Armstrong took Fessenden to court, but the Supreme Court ruled Fessenden the true inventor. Having never got credit for his invention, Armstrong then decided to let it go and make something that will blow AM out of the water. In 1933, Armstrong figured out a way to modulate frequencies of a radio wave and thus creating FM radio. Unfortunately for Armstrong, The RCA Company, finding out about his invention, filed a patent for their version of FM radio. In 1954, a heartbroken and penniless Armstrong commits suicide. However, the story of radio true inventor end on a good note, Armstrong’s wife in 1967 successfully wins the patent back for her late husband. Now that you now the history of radio it is time to understand the impact that it has had in society and in my life.
Radio was and continues to be huge. In the first three decades it had been recorded that 90% of families had a radio in their home, making the estimated listening audience to around 300,000,000. The most important impact that radio has is it connecting ability. Radio broadcasting permitted a mass array of individuals across regional, class, ethnic, and racial lines to experience the same live event at the same time…it was estimated that 20,000,000 people could be found tuned in simultaneously to the same program (Pandora,1998) This brought the nation close and united them in a single activity. It connected people from the farthest corners of our nation. It has been used in wartime and in times of peace. It has captivated audiences and transported them into other worlds. For me, radio is something I can always turn to. I enjoy having the ability to listen to anything I want. If someone says something I don’t like or a bad song comes on a certain station I have the ability to change the station. It’s empowering. Even though most of us take this for granted, hopefully now after learning it long and rich history and impact on society, we can all learn to appreciate the tremendous achievement that is Radio.
Pandora, K. (1998), “Mapping the New Mental World Created by Radio”: Media Messages, Cultural Politics, and Cantril and Allport's The Psychology of Radio. Journal of Social Issues, 54: 7–27.
