In 1941, a secret radio station deep in the English countryside prepared its first broadcast to occupied Europe. What followed was an hour of misinformation and slander about Hitler and his cronies - all delivered in the earthy voice of a disgruntled Nazi officer. Shocked and thrilled, ordinary Germans were glued to their sets.But this was just one front in Britain's extraordinary radio war. From clandestine stations to trusted BBC broadcasts, radio was used as a propaganda weapon ...

What if history had a sound track? What would it tell us about ourselves? Based on a thirty-part BBC Radio series and podcast, Noise explores the human dramas that have revolved around sound at various points in the last 100,000 years, allowing us to think in fresh ways about the meaning of our collective past.Though we might see ourselves inhabiting a visual world, our lives have always been hugely influenced by our need to hear and be heard. To tell the ...

The first in-depth history of the iconic radio and TV network that has shaped our past and present.Doctor Who; tennis from Wimbledon; the Beatles and the Stones; the coronation of Queen Elizabeth and the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales: for one hundred years, the British Broadcasting Corporation has been the preeminent broadcaster in the UK and around the world, a constant source of information, comfort, and entertainment through both war and peace, fe...

Challenging the opinion that public service broadcasting is a thing of the past, David Hendy explains its importance in the present – and in the future. Written by a leading expert in the field, this book explores the development of public service broadcasting, outlining the key debates and issues, while situating them within wider cultural contexts.Hendy uses media history to consider the outlook for broadcasters such as the BBC, and other networks and stations around the world. H...

Radio in the Global Age offers a fresh, up-to-date, and wide-ranging introduction to the role of radio in contemporary society. It places radio, for the first time, in a global context, and pays special attention to the impact of the Internet, digitalization and globalization on the political-economy of radio. It also provides a new emphasis on the links between music and radio, the impact of formatting, and the broader cultural roles the medium plays in constructing identities an...

Radio Four has been described as 'the greatest broadcasting channel in the world', the 'heartbeat of the BBC', a cultural icon of Britishness, and the voice of Middle England. Defined by its rich mix, encompassing everything from journalism and drama to comedy, quizzes, and short-stories, its programmes - such as Today,The Archers, Woman's Hour, The Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy, Gardeners' Question Time, and The Shipping Forecast - have been part of British l...

This 30-part Radio 4 series explores how our interactions with sound have shaped us over 100,000 years. These specially extended episodes, recorded on location around the world and in collaboration with curators of the British Library Sound Archive, take us from prehistory to the present, encompassing the shamanistic music of our cave-dwelling ancestors, the massacre of noisy cats in pre-revolutionary Paris, the nerve-destroying din of trench warfare, right through to the cacophony of the ...

Our view of the famous is one-dimensional—leading figures from history are summarized in history textbooks with one or two lines: Churchill the war-time genius, Gandhi the poor ascetic—but nobody is perfect and even the famous have their quirks and hidden secrets. How George Washington Fleeced the Nation reveals the often hilarious, sometimes shocking, and always highly informative foibles of the great and the good. Einstein, the most brilliant man who lived, regularly forgot his ...

Television: Technology and Cultural Form was first published in 1974, long before the dawn of multi-channel TV, or the reality and celebrity shows that now pack the schedules. Yet Williams' analysis of television's history, its institutions, programmes and practices, and its future prospects, remains remarkably prescient.Williams stresses the importance of technology in shaping the cultural form of television, while always resisting the determinism of McLuhan's dictum that...

In 1964, Mary Whitehouse launched a campaign to fight what she called the 'propaganda of disbelief, doubt and dirt' being poured into homes through the nation's radio and television sets. Whitehouse, senior mistress at a Shropshire secondary school, became the unlikely figurehead of a mass movement for censorship: the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, now Mediawatch-uk.For almost forty years, she kept up the fight against the programme makers, politicians, pop stars and...

This guide to the emerging language of creative industries field is a valuable resource for researchers and students alike. Concise, extensively referenced, and accessible, this this is an exceptionally useful reference work.- Gauti Sigthorsson***, Greenwich University***"There could be no better guides to the conceptual map of the creative industries than John Hartley and his colleagues, pioneers in the field. This book is a clear, comprehensive an...

'An active pleasure to read' Mail on SundayHarold Wilson's famous reference to 'white heat' captured the optimistic spirit of a society in the midst of breathtaking change. From the gaudy pleasures of Swinging London to the tragic bloodshed in Northern Ireland, from the intrigues of Westminster to the drama of the World Cup, British life seemed to have taken on a dramatic new momentum.The memories, images and colourful personalities of those heady ...