RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

by the absence of the (potential) readership because of a high illiteracy among workers and farmers who represent the majority of population , a lack of f mancial. resources (low wages and free time (a whole-day working day ) , and difficulties in delivering newspapers to reađers . In developed western societies , none of these limitations existed at the time of the invention of radio . The absence of these soaal and economic rather than technological limitations can be considered a major reason that "radio and television were systems primarily designed for transmission and reception of abstract processes , with little or no definition of preceđing content" (Willimas, 1975: 25), contrary to the press which basically đevelopeđ as a means of the public in its initial stages and later on as a means of value increase of capital. In the twenties when radlo began to develop , the public was already “refeudalized” (Habermas) and it was capital rather than critical consciousness which, primarily, made use of the new medium. Thus , in the strict sense, McQuail is wrong when contrasting radio as ”a technologv looking for use" to "a response to a demand for a new kind of service or content" . Contrary to the early development of print media , radio was typically, from its very beginnmgs , developed as a commodity ("a toy and novelty" ) , as a service for capital, as a form of exchange value . Consequently , it had no specific use value in terms of contents . But although its content was not important, at least not for capital •, radio was definitely developed as a service - for capital rather than audiences : radio and later on television developed "within a big business atmosphere , đominated from its infancy by the largest inđustries in the world" (Stevens , Garcia, 1980: 139). 2 . However . the technology vs . content controversy in the development of radio and later on television, in contrast to pnnt media anđ motion pictures , is also related to the differences in technological structure of mass communication processes . On one hand , after centuries of communications deveiopment following the mvention of handwriting , rađio 'closed the gap J between the process anđ the result of production m communication . With the invention of handwriting the result of writing and later on printing , the message, became separated from the act of writing (printing) itself . Although wntmg and pnnting essentially extended temporal and spatial honzons of mdividuals and societies , they do not at all shorten temporal and spatial distances between commumcator and recipient . Rather , all technological innovations which made commumcation processes easier and faster were extrinsic by their character since they ongmated from the outside (e.g. transportation) . With radio , similarly to telephony and telegraphy , both temporal and spatial distances were definitely surmounted within communication process itself , without