Out of the Ether
Simon J. Potter · 2022
Abstract This chapter explores the idea of a ‘wireless world’. It contrasts this with the utopian vision of a limitless, egalitarian ‘ether’, and argues that the wireless world was soon characterized by inequality, hierarchy, and the national conflicts and divisions of the physical world. The chapter examines key themes in the existing historiography of international radio broadcasting, and sets out the key features of a new research agenda, to be pursued in the other chapters of the book. It includes discussion of individual experiences of listening, and outlines key moments in the development of new technologies of and approaches to international broadcasting