RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

averting disasters on the high seas; they became an epistemic community , sharing the common desire to use the "ether" (airwaves) as ап invisible means of connectedness . With overpopulation the interference caused by too many people trying to use a the scarce resource of the ether , anđ the insistence by the Navy anđ industrial shipping concerns that these young men could not be trusted, the amateurs were relegated to a decreasingly important role after the first radio act of 19 12 (Douglas , 1 987 ) . The experience of the amateurs before the First World War was instructive , however, because their proliferation was predicated on a vary different understanding of what radio was , and could be , than has emerged since the advent of commercial broadcasting . The emergence of this grass-roots networK of boys and young men marKs the introđuction of yet another way of using anđ thinKing about wireless anđ the ether which contributed to the social construction of broadcasting . To the amateurs , the ether was neither the rightful province of the military nor a resource a private firm coulđ appropriate or monopolize . The ether was , instead , an exciting new frontier in which men anđ boys could congregate, complete , test their mettle , and be privy to a range of new information . Social order and social control were defied . In this realm the indiviđual voice did not have to đefer to the authority of business or the state . This realm, argued the amateurs , did not belong to hierarchical bureaucracies; it belonged to the "people" (Douglas , 1987, p. 214). With the Radio Act of 19 12, and the assertion of greater control over rađio by the Navy , as well as by commercial interests , community radio was relegated to an increasingly minor position (Douglas, 1987, pp. 217-291). After the First World War , and with the advent of powerful commercial rađio interests, non-commercial radio was relegated to a broađcast ghetto оп the lower end of the tuning đial, While commercial stations were given authorization for high power transmissiohs , regional and clear channel services (no other station would be allowed on certain freguencies so that such stations could be heard over wide areas of the Umted States ) , non-commercial stations were legally restricted by the Federal Communlcations Commisslon to local, low-power services , anđ many coulđ only operate on a part-time basis . During the Depression, funds were tight, forcing many non-commercial outiets off the air (Barlow , 1987, pp . 5-6).

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