RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

Several guestions listed above аге also discussed in contributions to the 1988 Colloquium in Bleđ which is devoted to the new developments of radio. Since the first colloquium was successful, participants unanimousl/ suggested to organize such interactive small-group discussions on a more regular basis. The organizer, the Faculty of Sociology, Political Science and Journalism , accepted this proposition and invited a limited number of scholars to the second Colloquium which is co-organized and sponsored by Radio Ljubljana , on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of its foundation . RADIO ; ACHILLES WITH GUNPOWDER? It is not only the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Rađio Ljubljana which suggested the theme of our Second Colloquium , What is far more important is the fact that , although radio is (still) the most wide-spread of all the comparison to the press and television , anđ even (or particularly ) the new 4elematic media' . The majority of fundamental studies ih radio broadcasting were done in the period from early thirties to early sixties , i.e. đuring the period of a rapid growth of radio in terms of number of radio stations , hours of programming and the size of radio audiences , as well as the increasing political relevance of radio across the world . As Burgelman (1988; 1) observed, "it looks as if the state of research on the subject of politics and broadcasting is consiđered То be complete." Indeed, rađio was involveđ as an essential element in all the Кеу social and political processes and transformations in the modern history of manKind , from the proletarian revolutions and the nse of fascism to the Second World War and the cold war after it , but seems to loses апу stgnificance in contemporary 'mformation society' . Apart from the fact that radio in a way politically represents the most tragic penod of regressions in human history , the 'decades of radio' are characterized by a number of changes m media development, i.e. not only in radio broadcasting but in other međia as well. I do not mean to analyze here m detail all these changes, but rather to concentrate on some fundamental dimensions of the social history of rađio which 1 consider relevant also for its contemporary developments . 1 . Contrary to pnnt media , radio anđ later on television were . accordmg to McOuail (1987: 15 ), "first a technology and oniy later a service" . Though the 1 Bth and 1 9th centunes . newspapers developed rather slowly because of limited possibilities of a wider accessibility . Only partly , limitations of the development of the press were technological by their nature . More importantly, the development of the press was restramed

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