Why was television able to displace radio at the centre of the home in Essay

Why was television able to displace radio at the centre of the home in the late 1950s - Essay Example Talking about reasons we cannot take in consideration only technical progress and therefore technical reasons. When one media channel of information for mass perception is changed and replaced by another, not only practical and technical reasons are at hand but also people’s ability to adapt, social challenges, and general mood of the society. Radio was the most widespread, successful, and popular media source in the twenties, thirties, and forties in the United States and Europe. Historical changes and political collapses urged society to develop new and fast means of communication and entertainment. Radio as a mass media instrument quickly developed after the First World War because progress in communication was a necessary tool during the wartime. The Roaring Twenties masterfully inclined the idea of home entertainment and news broadcasting using radio transmissions (Mowitt, 2011) Of course, printing was at the high level too offering their consumers all the necessary package of global events, comic strips, home recipes etc. But with cinema being used only for the art and entertainment, collective consciousness quickly developed a new necessity for the ability to hear everything about anything without a need to leave their house. In 1936 Federal communications Commission’s first chief commissioner Anning S. Pral l named radio â€Å"a combination of the schoolhouse, the church, the public postrum, the newspaper, the theater, the concert hall – in fact all media devoted to the education and enlightment of the people† (Prall, 1936). Radio was the voice of the world, the voice of the time in the late period of the first half of the twentieth century, century of global and local breakdowns. Radio was used as a generator of public opinion, describing and uniting all classes and groups of people, creating the means of propaganda for the purposes of governments and entertainment for the average citizens. With cinema still being on the low level and considering