Tuning-in to the World

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines the audiences for international broadcasting, and the efforts of international broadcasters and governments to understand the impact on audiences of radio programmes transmitted across national borders. Drawing on historians’ investigations of audience reception, it focuses on qualitative, rather than just quantitative, evaluations of audience responses and listening. It surveys audiences for imperial and fascist propaganda in the 1930s and ‘occupied’ listening during the Second World War, as well as European efforts to reinforce colonial power during the era of decolonization. It also examines Cold War attempts to understand audiences, showing how many of the claims made by broadcasters about their audiences need to be understood in terms of their need to maintain state funding. A case study then looks at audiences for international broadcasting in neutral Portugal during the Second World War, while another examines audiences for the Cold-War era US station broadcasting from West Germany, RIAS.