RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

best reception) , Program Service (i .e . intorrnation about the station and program on a digital display built into the radio set) , and the provision of alternative freguencies . Information can also be added about traffic conđitions , the radio can be used as a clock and calendar , and text can be included in graphic form or made audible through a voice synthesizer. RDS billed as making radio sets "user friendly" (Vogel, 1987) -is being introduced in Britain (Dean, 1986; 'The BBC takes giant step . . .', 1988) and will be introđuced in all EBU countries . Other subcarrier applications go much further in extending the range of services that a radio station can provide , including audio music services, digital data transmission, paging services, utilit у load management, text transmissions , facsimile services , stocks and commodity guotes , viđeo game downloading to PCs , retail and дгосегу data transmission, banking and brokerage transaction transmission , medical or financial information networks , foreign language service , dispatches , traffic signal control, station telemetry , electronic mail, police and government communications, computer software and data base updating , slow scan video , reading services and wire services . In 1986, some 31 '/. of American radio stations were using one or more subcarriers . Thus , from a technical point of view, at least , radio looks set to provide , alongside the new technologies of television - and in competition with them ,to some extent 4 ) - a great аггау of new broaocasting , communication and inf ormation services , anđ to make it much easier for non-broadcasters to use the medium of radio for their purposes . RADIO IN SOCIETV The history of electronic communication is littered with гозу predictions as to how new technologies would offer a wider range of content choice and thereby benefit society (cf. e.g. Streeter . 1987). Subseguent ехрепепсе has shown that actual patterns of media performance are molded by patterns of social relations and orgamzation , as well as by audience needs and expectations , of ten in diff erent ways than had been predicteđ . _ Let us therefore try to look in very general terms at how the role of radio m the new media age is likely to be shaped by social processes discermble already today . A useful framework for this can be provided , we believe , by the concept of the socio-institutional mođel of mass communication . Аз defined here , this model :

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