Farewell Old Friend…
Communication technology is such a
necessity to many in this society, including myself. I do consider all the new media to be
important and maybe to some extent necessary for the time we all find ourselves
living in. However, I am not the type of person that goes and gets in line to
shop for the newest invention from Apple. I do not own an I-phone and do not
plan to own one any time soon. My reasons for not complying with the “trend”
are for my rebellious ways to not conform to the “cool ways” of all the “cool
kids.” Don’t get me wrong, the majority of my friends own I-phones, and I love
them all the same, I just don’t like to be the same as everyone else. So to be
honest, I am not a communication technology junkie or part of the “trend.”
Being
that I am no seeker of adventurous new technology, I do not know how I would
have approached the introduction of the radio to individuals’ homes. In a way I
feel like because there wouldn’t have been such an inundation of new
technologies I probably would have accepted it with more ease. Radio reached
40% of all households in the U.S. by 1930, and it passed 90% by 1947 (Grant and
Meadows, 22). Today it still remains as the number one household medium. So
much so that radio is in 99% of houses in the U.S. (Nielsen, Jan. 2011).
Radio is
obviously in almost every U.S. residence, however, is it really valued and
appreciated anymore? That is a question that all individuals should take time
to answer. In my honest opinion, it is not cherished to the extent it used to
be. In a way, this makes me melancholic. As I am sure it does as well to many
that delight in the pleasures of broadcasting played through the airways of
frequency and amplitude.
In the “olden
days” radio was THE way of entertainment for American families. Grandparents,
parents and children would all gather around to listen to the radio, being
either the factual information provided by the news or even the stories told by
Orson Welles, which affected the public to the point of panic with the
broadcasting of The War of the Worlds.
To this day the broadcasting of the fictional end of the world remains the most
popular of all time.
What I
call traditional radio, both AM and FM have become ways to transmit
contemporary music and commentary shows of rude-obnoxious-wannabe “political
critics.” The exception being the broadcasting of NPR, which is probably still
the best way to obtain real news today.
The
modernization of radio now makes it hard to define what radio really is
anymore. Traditionally I’d suppose you’d expect to have some sort of tuning box
transmitting signals of shows in AM or FM, as well as the in between blank
spaces filled with white noise. But that’s not the case anymore, radio has
evolved so much that it’s on the internet, phones and other portable devices.
It has spread and not all is necessarily strictly AM or FM anymore. There also
exists the HD version of radio, satellite radio, internet radio, Pandora and
now there is even radio frequencies provided from 3000 miles away, like I-Heart
Radio, which lets you choose from country wide radio stations to customize your
preferences of broadcasting.
Communication
technology advances every day at the speed of sound. It is so fast that if
radio, the traditional version, is not valued or appreciated, it will vanish
into being mere memories of sounds we once heard. In the future if radio cannot
find the means to compete with all these “new radios,” there is no doubt that
it will disappear. Especially since the new media is asynchronous, and the
internet gives us the option to listen to the broadcastings whenever we want
to. There’s an element that will be lost in radio, being “live” is never going
to happen again with our new attitudes of, “I’ll listen to it when I want.”
It’s in
our hands to either bid farewell to traditional/live radio, or to simply guard it. Those annoying
commercials cannot be that bad as to the point of getting rid of an entertainer
that has always been there, don’t you think?
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