At the Speed of Sound: Techno-Aesthetic Paradigms in U.S.--French International Broadcasting, 1925--1942 (2013)
Vaillant, Derek W. (Author)
Technology and Culture
Volume: 54, no. 4
Issue: 4
Pages: 888-921
Edition Details: Part of the special section: “Science and Industry in Modern France”.
Language: English
Decades before satellite television and the internet, broadcasters enlisted shortwave radio to furnish live intercontinental programming between the United States and Europe. Unlike long-distance, point-to-point radio and conventional long- and medium-wave amplitude modulation (AM) broadcasting, shortwave broadcasts furnished ambient sound, voices, and music to mass audiences at a remove of thousands of miles. Moving instantaneously across oceans, continents, and national borders, shortwave embodied the leading edge of trans- and international communication and had dramatic influences. Shortwave broadcasters scooped the international press corps at Munich in 1938, and the technology developed into a key tool during and after World War II. Less frequently noted, however, is that by 1938, transatlantic broadcasts had occurred regularly for the better part of a decade.1 In 1931, the French Ministry of Posts, Telegraphs, and [End Page 888] Telephones (PTT) and the U.S. National Broadcasting Company (NBC) began regular shortwave-broadcast exchanges. Whether heard directly on shortwave receivers or via instantaneous relay to AM sets, transatlantics heralded bright possibilities for live global communication. Among other things, transatlantics exemplified the ambition of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), NBC's parent company, to create a community of sound and vision … to be distributed upon a national and even upon a worldwide basis, through broadcasting.
...MoreArticle Levitt, Theresa (2013) Liberty, Equality, Technology: Virtuous Inventors and Base Profiteers in the French Industrial Revolution and Beyond. Technology and Culture (pp. 815-819).
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