The Sleeping Giant — Resistance and Repression in the Monopoly Years

Abstract

Local radio, as we shall see, is a world-wide phenomenon. That is, it is not a rarity, found only in a few, perhaps maverick countries which have distinguished themselves by going down a route in the organisation of their own radio industries which the majority have chosen not to follow. Instead, local radio is to be found across the globe, but it can differ greatly from country to country in the way it is organised. Neither did local radio appear overnight, in the early days of radio. Rather, it was at first like a sleeping giant: full of potential but as yet still dormant. In most countries of the world, radio has grown up over the past hundred years or so in a way that has been directed by central government — or in some cases regional government — because from the start broadcasting was perceived as the use by a privileged few of a resource that is finite, and indeed scarce. This concept of broadcasting as an activity using a scarce resource that must be allocated in an organised manner — rather than being fought over in a chaotic and ultimately self-destructive way — is one that has been successfully argued in most countries and which has governed their radio and television industries since their early beginnings (Barnard 2000: 10). It has been used ever since the 1920s to exert control over broadcasting, to limit the right to go on air to a powerful few and, as we shall see, to impose particular ideologies on whole populations.