Key Blogpost #2 - EOTO Com Tech Timeline

From an early age, I have always been interested in radio and its seemingly magical way to audibly capture the attention and hearts of its audience unique to any form of media beforehand. Growing up listening to the radio on my way to and from school, exposed me to an incredible variety of music genres, radio personalities, and advertisements. An amount which would have been comedically overwhelming for someone growing up one to two generations earlier. Radio is a tool which revolutionized the way in which companies advertise their products, and the way people behave and arrange themselves culturally within both public and private spheres of their lives. Throughout this blogpost, I plan to discuss these topics as well as give a relatively brief history of Radio. 

                                         

At a time when wireless telegraphy was in one of its earliest stages, and wireless communication was just recently able to reach across the Atlantic, Reginald Fessenden decided to change the game. Fessenden, an engineer for Thomas Edison’s company, General Electric, created an alternator transmitter allowing for an increased number of electrical ticks and for Fessenden himself to speak over the air. On Christmas day in 1906, he christened the Electromagnetic Spectrum by reciting passages from the bible and playing “O Holy Night” on the violin over the radio for anyone with a receiver to hear. Overtime, additional regulations were instituted regarding how and which companies could operate on the spectrum.

In 1912, the Radio Act of 1912 was passed giving the secretary of commerce the authority to split up the spectrum delegating which parties could send messages on which frequencies. It wasn’t until the Radio Act of 1927 when the Federal Radio Commission (later known as the FCC) was established and took control of the EMS’s regulations. By then, licenses had to be purchased by those interested in operating on the EMS for a specific amount of time. At this point, the EMS was something that nearly anyone could access. Over the next few years, tens of millions of dollars are made by radio stations from advertisements. Noticing the increasing impact radio was having on our culture, President Franklin D. Roosevelt started his “Fireside Chats” where he spoke inclusively to his audience and calmed the panicked American people during the hard times of the Great Depression. An act which better established his positive relationship with the American people and increased his political popularity. By the late 1940s, hundreds of millions had been made from radio, yet television was taking over the popular scene. 

 

One major impact of Radio was its ability to create popular culture within the United States. What it meant to be a kid in South Carolina and the popular culture surrounding that area was much different than that of a kid living in Missouri. But now companies and their products could be advertised nationally reaching an audience far greater than what was previously thought possible. There became a societal need to stay informed and up-to-date on all the news, advertisements, music, politics, religious sermons, and the popular dissemination of ideas provided through radio. The distribution and direction of furniture within the average American household was rearranged to focus the room’s attention around the radio. It wasn’t until the increased popularity of the television was the American household affected by such a drastic change to its traditional values.

https://transition.fcc.gov/omd/history/radio/documents/short_history.pdf

http://www.wcbn.org/history/wcbntime.html