19 February 2007
Radio Realization
While reading the communication history book on radio I realized what a revolutionary tool the radio acctually was to its time. I never had thought about how these people had to acctually craft their own radios then tinker for hours upon days to get a signal. Then they would sit by and listen to a random mix of things across the wavelengths. It must have been very enthralling to be one of the first of their town to have a radio then be able to interpret happenings coming out of a speaker. There were no stations that were a certain genre of music at the beggning so they just sat and listened. I relate this very much to the internet for our generation. They thought it was super uber amazing that they were acctually hearing all this info over the speaker, much like we browse web pages uber amazed at the information we have at our finger tips. The difference is that we can look upon anything we want. They had to just sit tight and listen to whatever was on. I feel like if I was in the generation of the first radios that I would be one to tinker with this magnificent machine and figure new ways to do things much as the "amatuers" did. It was so awesome to me how they were finding new ways to recieve stronger signals with different crystals. I found the readings this time highly interesting!
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5 comments:
I really didn't understand the full impact of the radio either until Understanding Radio from McLuhan's perspective. He provided some sweet examples of how the power of this medium was recieved and interpreted differently by societies of varying literacy. Hitler happened to be in the right place at the right time, and was able to recognize his position and power as an orator. What he did with that opportunity... we all know well. But What Orson Welles did with it was quite the opposite. He recognized the revolutionary aspect aswell. That no one in the literate west was ready for his resonating absurdity backed-up by distance and lack of authenticity. I dont know if he knew exactly what he was doing or not, but he sure did capture thousands by their minds and ears and gave a nice slap in the face; which we should thank him for. This social indifference to the radical force of technology is pretty serious, I mean McLuhan was writting some 40 yrs ago and we still dont hear his name until the University? I dont know about your highschool but we never learned a thing about media and society, not from his perspective at least. A large number dont even hear of him @ the University. its like we dont want to know, or just cant accept it. I dont really know what to think about that...
I guess we have our own “tinkerers” today with people building there own computers mixing and matching software until they get what they desire. The difference is today the “tinkerers” don’t have to craft there own computer; they can simply buy any one of thousands already distributed around the world. But I agree that being that person who had power of the radio in their hands must have felt good about themselves. It must have been boring just waiting and listening to see if they could catch anything. I had a walky talky and as soon as I got a hold of someone I would start goofing around. I’m sure back then they were eager to meet new people and learn of news from various places. I like that individuals would try new ways to get stronger signals. Now we don’t bother with such things and we leave it up to the professional scientists and engineers to do it for us.
You know, for some reason i found this reading to be more difficult to get through then the others, but either way it was still an interesting read. I found that the tinkering of radios to be similar to every new product that's out that everyone likes to tinker with and rebuild. It also reminded me that it seemed much like today's family tv dinners to me. They must have loved sitting in front of the radio, just listening in...like school children to a teacher just listening to a great adventure.
I was also amazed to read about the development of the radio. Forrest L compared the radio to the internet when that was first invented, but I see the invention of the Radio more like the invention of the television. They had a lot of the same characteristics like both were limited on what you were able to watch/listen. Also people had to “tinker” around with them to get the best reception. I don’t know too much on the rise of television but I can remember when I was a little kid that our television didn’t have buttons to change the channels, it had knobs. And the knobs had channels written around them and you had to go through them to find the right channels which was incredibly annoying. Now everything is digital on televisions so everything is easily accesible, and that’s then great thing about technology, with time and motivation everything can improve.
I like to think that this kinda shows our inevitable ability to create new things. The radio was created, well, just sitting there in search of a signal of something random was pretty inefficient. So they create broadcasts and frequencies. With the internet for us, it's about instantaneous information. We don't want to have to search for hours for something, or wait 30 minutes to download something. We have all this information, and it was amazing at first. I remember first time I got in a chat room, I was so excited haha. The tinkers then created massive search engines, and high-speed internet, and faster processors. So, if you're the tinker today, what is it you are tinkering with? What issue are you trying to work out? You might be working towards the next breakthrough.
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