RADIO AS MENACE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 189, 27 August 1937, Page 3

RADIO AS MENACE

Professor Shelley on Dariger oi Propaganda ITS USES IN WARTIME Propaganda more * dangerous than bullets •• was the description used by Professor^: -J. .' Shelley; Director of - Broadcasting, speaking of the possible misuse of ' radio in wartime during an . address at New Plymouth.' "If it was used in that way it could be a most damnable instrument of national policy, said Mr. Shelley. • He - recalled thaffc just Ibefore the Great "War it was urged that aeroplanes should not be used for fighting," but the movement camo too late aud they knejv. now the part aircraft. played in modern warfare. Was broadcasting also' to be.used as an instrument pf - war? Could they not say it was altogether tdo dangero'us, as no doubt it was? • , Mr.;. Shpllev drew attention to the enormous influe'nce that radio could fiai el ' He qiioted Hitler's reinark that Nazism was put into power by ,broadcavting, not bullets. l'cople. scarcely realised the 'great sociai- power of broadcasting. It was the -educated liiind that should listen to broadcasting and w;eigh the ideas that eame -over the . air, rejecting the unworfhy an'd accepting the' worthy. Was broadcasting in New Zealand to stand for trpthtulness and fairness? If it was not-it would be used dangerously. He asked thein to re'mepaber that wHotl he would not perniit the broadcasting of some speech he wa's not conceriied so mnch s witii that partieular speuch as with what broadcasting wouJd be like in ten years. Unless he exejcised his power there .would be no i discipline . in a short space of time. He Had to censider what place broadcasting was going to have in the future of civilisation.