Introduction: Researching (Post)Colonial Broadcasting

Abstract

Communication technologies have played a central role in the rise and fall of empires throughout history. Harold Innis’s (1950) pioneering work offers a broad view on the phenomenon, through a comprehensive analysis that extends from stone and papyrus to the printing press. However, when considering the empires of the 20 century, no other communication technology was more influential than broadcasting, which was used to promote and to fight colonialism and different political ideologies. The center stage assumed by radio in the interwar period led European imperial nations to be among the first group of countries to invest in overseas broadcasting, aiming to unite the home countries with those living in the far reaches of the empires. The audio medium was then perceived as a powerful tool for creating “a sense of national heritage and history” (Hilmes, 2002, p. 10) within national borders but also overseas in territories under European domain mostly in Africa, Asia and the West Indies, where a community of white expats were believed to be eagerly expecting to be kept in contact with the home countries. Imperial broadcasting was, from its inception, a problematic operation for many reasons, starting with the stations’ lack of knowledge about those who were actually tuning in to the transmissions. This led the stations to depend on the feedback from listeners living overseas and who, in the Dutch, British and Portuguese cases, wrote to the broadcasters from the early days of the transmissions (Kuitenbrouwer, 2016; Potter, 2021; Ribeiro, 2014). While ceremonial events were prioritized for their potential of creating a sentimental bond among expatriates in the colonies, light entertainment, news and informative talks also made up a significant portion of the programming schedules. One of the characteristics shared by imperial broadcasters until the end of the Second World War was their lack of interest and/or capacity to reach the majority of the colonial population who did not speak European languages. In many territories under European domain, namely in Africa, language fragmentation was the norm, which made it difficult and expensive to reach non-Europeans. The large investments required to broadcast in different JOURNAL OF RADIO & AUDIO MEDIA 2022, VOL. 29, NO. 1, 5–9 https://doi.org/10.1080/19376529.2022.2050525