Radio and European History Essay

Radio broadcasting has been viewed by governmental agencies across the globe as a contributing medium that served its growing audience. Across the years, radio broadcasting has provided entertainment and information to a diverse audience from local to, regional and international reach in commercial, social or political atmospheres. Radio broadcasting, according to Godfrey (2006), is a primary source material and an information tool as it directly observes and relates relevant events. Along with photographic records, physical remains and oral sources, radio and television broadcasts are potent sources of unfiltered evidence closer to an event, as Godfrey added. The acquisition of specific details that try to retain the images of an event through an actual experience has led Puddington (2003) to believe that media has challenged the shape of history. The significant claims on the importance of radio broadcasting drives home the idea that its classification as a primary source of data may is its contribution to history. More importantly, this paper shall strive to prove how radio broadcasting shaped European History as it gears up a strong hypothetical contention that radio broadcasting had a definite role in the shaping of European integration. The age of airwaves begun after the series of discoveries that led to the invention of the wireless telegraph. It soon signaled the birth of the radio telegraph that allowed a wide range of sounds, music and human voice to be transmitted in a new technology in 1914 according to Godfrey. Historically, it was also a crucial time fraught with misunderstanding and strife that divided Europe into armed camps. World War I broke out with Germany leading the war for control in Europe. History would recall that as early as 1872, Germany had entertained plans to control the European region as it dominated European diplomacy while France remained isolated from the rest according to Viault(1990). An ongoing international crisis had threatened to move the European powers closer to the brink of war by the 1900’s. Still in the throes of hectic plans and preparation, Germany had to content itself with waiting for a few more years before striking a match to light the flames of war. Earlier on, Europe was in its creative prime as artistic activities catered to a romantic era of the 1800 and onwards, a little over a century before radio ruled technology. It was also a century of inventions and research that became a turning point for technology to prosper. Europe while in an age of development was politically stocked under a conservative rule which soon gave way to a movement effectively fighting for reform. While Britain’s royal and upper classes rejected political democracy, France also became very authoritarian that soon culminated in the 1848 revolution which Viault (1990) related. A growing powerful ideology of nationalism also promoted a disintegration of the Austrian empire in Central Europe that soon resulted to a few alliances among nations while contributing to reckless disintegration across the regions of Europe. In effect, Europe was in mindless turmoil and at a crossroads during a century rich with creative thought yet devoid of an amplified objective. At the onset of World War I, wireless transmission proved to be an invaluable tool to the military although they were quite wary of its potential use in espionage and mass propaganda. Indeed this was the actual case as Ireland and Britain were able to recruit young draftees for World War I following the RMS Lusitania’s bombing off the coast of Ireland on the way to Lverpool by a German U-boat (Reader’s Digest, 2003). As the United States courted the use of radio for home entertainment, BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) used the radio for news and entertainment with immediate plans to isolate it from political pressures as it battles with pay for radio entertainers as reported by the NY Times (Jun, 28, 1925). Radio broadcasting was also seen among countries in Europe as serving well in fostering good-will and amity among the nations of Europe and paving the way for unity as reported again in the NY Times (Jun 7, 1931). Such movement was instrumental in the recruitment of soldiers to serve in the allied force against Nazi Germany. In a specter of a growing 2nd World War brought about by rising Nazi Germany’s plan for domination, the radio technology was already seen as a tool in war efforts. At the outbreak of World War II, radio broadcasting reached the height of international worth as it carried news from the battlefront into the homes of listeners worldwide. Radio Commentator Edward Murrow had created sensations with eyewitness description of London during German bombing raids according to Godfrey (2006). Murrow had also reported on the Buchenwald Concentration Camps on April 11, 1945 according to Puddington (2003) which was instrumental in calling an end to the genocide. War was soon declared over the airwaves as Adolf Hitler set his conditions for war and genocide in Europe over Radio Hamburg in Viault (1990). The radio’s instrumental contribution to defeat the enemy camp of Hitler was made clear as allied camps tried to disrupt German military communications signals. Germany retaliated by jamming the signals and broadcast yet heavily lost amidst allied Europe’s hands. After the war, efforts to curb Russian communism was in the mainframe of Europe’s Radio Liberation programs that prayed for a Stalin and communist era to end. In the dark days of anti-Stalin struggle, the radio broadcast was again used as a weapon of psychological warfare according to Puddington (2003). Under a movement to free Europe from any communist rule after defeating Nazism, the Cold War between the US and USSR became a regional problem in Europe. Radio Free Europe (RFE) was established as a secretly American-funded station whose main objective was to spread the evils of communism. The Russians however weren’t quick to believe any evil broadcasts against their leader who defeated the evil Hitler and the Nazis as Puddington reasoned. By the 1970’s, Radio Liberty in Europe had ranked as the most influential international broadcast station with an impressive staff of exile writers and a growing Soviet audience in Puddington (2003). Stalin’s death in 1953 created a widening room for anti-communism ideas that had sacrificed the radio station and many of its staff and workers in the interest of international peace and harmony. Poland had once pleaded to abolish Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe in order to maintain diplomatic ties with Russia but other European countries opted for the propaganda movement against communism to remain heard. Shortwave broadcasts around the Czech Republic continued despite jamming from the Soviet communist regime. Likewise in West Germany, the country researched and studied the Soviet system of governance dedicated to the cause of freeing East Germany. Radio stations were tapped all around Europe as visible stars in an anti-communist sentiment. In a landscape of remembrance for the human efforts to attain peace and freedom, the advent of radio has ultimately provided an integral element in the unity and integration of Europe. Through radio broadcasting, information was disseminated across a wider population that became instrumental in creating an alliance among nations who desired for peace and freedom rather than dominion. The historical separation of European countries in the 19th century prior to the advent of radio technology was soon disbanded in an effort to create an alliance of nations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights spoke of the right to receive and impart ideas and information regardless of frontiers. Radio broadcasting as the prevalent technology in an era fraught with wars and conflicts became a tool that united European nations to unite for a common cause of peace and freedom. Radio Broadcasting has therefore shaped the modern world’s history as a modern global tool that permitted countries to unite under a common goal for peace.