THE POWER OF BROADCASTING.

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 34, 7 March 1930, Page 4

THE POWER OF BROADCASTING.

QUR columns this week have many instances where the power of radio broadcasting has made itself evident for good or for evil, carrying out a duty that no other agent is capable of doing. It is safe to assert that the day when broadcasting will be universally recognised as the greatest mouthpiece of the world is near at hand. Almost every week, we find something new and more astonishing is taking place in the radio world. The technicalities are becoming rapidly perfected and trans-continental and trans-oceanic conversations are becoming almost daily events. The power of the developments must react in the vast majority of cases for the good of humanity; they must weld the nations of the world into a harmonious whole. Broadcasting has shown itself to be more than an experiment, more than a means of entertainment, and in its future there stand out distinct possibilities. In England and the Continent broadcasting has created the need for a universal language. In New Zealand the need for such a language is not felt so keenly as most of the stations received here broadcast in English, but in Europe the case is different. Literally dozens of stations can be received by the average receiver nightly, but their messages are undecipherable. When the power of the stations is increased and the sensitivity of our receivers improve, these foreign stations will come in-but for what purpose if we cannot understand them? The educational propensities of radio are ever widening, and the listener of to-day gets his information in the true psychological! way, in response to a definite need. The realm of this first-hand knowledge extends further than geography and history into economics. ethics, political science and, unfortunately, languages. Radio is then creating the need for education, and in response to it, is educating. But there is another aspect that must be carefully guarded against -insidious propaganda, that if heeded will disturb the peace of the world and off-set the good of broadcasting in general. An example of how broadcasting may be used to spread harmful teaching has been provided, we believe, by a Soviet short-wave station. This

station has a world-wide radius and is daily sending out the poison of Communism that has wrecked one of the greatest nations of-@y world. These broadcasts are being received on thousands of sets throughout the world, and if left unwatched will certainly disturb sections of our peoples. Undesirable literature is rightly banned, disloyal utterances immediately crushed, yet there is no ban on the broadcasting-there cannot be. The forces that must crush its influence are not external, not direct, but lie in the very factor that they are combating broadcastirig. If the peace-loving world can hear what its leaders are doing to promote peace and good-will, and can see the definite advances that are being made to promote further international unity, the unsound propaganda that is coming over the air will go unheeded. It will be a case of hearing both-and observing the result. Man will listen where he will not read, and in this lies the power of broadcasting.