“The exercise of making radio matters,” said a caller.
“It’s a symbol of resistance.”
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| A man listens to radio in Nigeria's Borno state, as the region recovers from clashes with Islamist groups. |
Over to You
BBC World Service
BBC World Service
In the week when Apple’s Beats 1 radio station was
launched – “Worldwide. Always on . . . It broadcasts 24/7 to over 100 countries
from our studios in Los Angeles, New York and London” – there was also
discussion of the BBC’s latest global audience measurement figures. The most
striking thing in the report, which tracked listening habits and how they had
changed over the past year, was how short-wave radio – in rural and poorer
areas where there is no FM, no cable and no electricity, it’s still the only
way of tuning in – is under increasing threat from something as basic as
jamming.
Apple’s idea of radio as digital and impermeable never
felt more breezily First World. Listeners to the English-language programmes on
the BBC World Service, for example – in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, in
particular – have almost halved in number because of deliberate disruption on
the short-wave signal, apparently from China, forcing stations to rotate
frequencies on the same band to at least attempt a slot.
“Tune around . . . You’ll find us. We will be there,”
advised a technician on Over to You (4 July,
5.50pm). It conjured that most antiquated and urgent of images: a person
clutching their temples, coaxing a dial, trying and trying to find a signal.
“I grew up with short-wave radio,” insisted a caller
to the show, “and I got to understand the world, got to understand life. If you
don’t know short-wave radio, you don’t know life.” Only moments later, there
was talk of the closure of all the non-state-run radio stations in Burundi (one
of the poorest and least connected countries in the world). Before the recent
coup attempt, independent radio stations played a huge role in holding the
government to account but many radio journalists are now forced to report using
what social media is available.
“The exercise of making radio matters,” said a caller.
“It’s a symbol of resistance.” And another, with some disdain, said: “Doing it
on the internet is just a way of keeping it on record.” The more than
century-long act of turning a dial and finding a signal, with a human voice
hitching a ride on electromagnetic energy through space, is something it seems
our species now feels in the bones. But worldwide? Always on? Only for some.
Sources Link: http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2015/07/governments-shut-down-radio-bbc-world-service-lifeline
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