Old Waves

Abstract

This chapter considers how the news ecosystem could change with the introduction of new technologies, particularly the cinema and the radio. What was unfolding was not a replacement of old forms of media but a superposition of waves upon waves of information in a variety that proved bewildering. The first section explains the development of newsreels in cinemas and radio as new forms of visual and aural news. The technical constraints of the radio made the existing problem of divergent audiences more evident, by placing the spotlight on the issue of spoken language. The second section looks at how these new forms of news contributed to a growing political polarization of Algeria in the 1930s, focusing on news of the Spanish Civil War. The novelty of radio-listening was that it facilitated the formation of new political communities across borders, placing Algeria within a wider transnational conflict between fascism and communism.