Saturday, September 25, 2010

Industry from Technology

Many factors contributed to what became the radio industry of the 1920's.  When radio first came into use, war and government activity certainly played a part in how the invention would be used.  However, I think that it was the actual inventions themselves, the technological advancement of the medium, which proved to be a much more influential force overall.

Technological advancement is typically where most things, especially media, are born from.  As the technology gets better, and more innovation occurs, external forces like society will change and innovate based on the new opportunities available with the new or improved technology.  Essentially, the force of technological advancement drives all other factors, most of which wouldn't exist in the first place if not for technology.

In the case of the radio industry, it was shaped itself most dramatically, obviously, by Marconi's invention of radio itself.  Without this absolutely essential discovery, the industry itself would not have existed.  However, if radio had simply remained in this state, essentially as a wireless telegraph service, the radio industry in the 1920's would never have existed.  What brought about all the other changes was de Forest's invention of the vacuum tube (or the "Audion tube" as he called it), which made the transmission of sounds beyond the simple tones of telegraph transmissions possible.  Without the vacuum tube, there would have been no broadcast of music (along with many other things), which was the main centerpiece of all radio programming in the USA. The industry would have had no reason to exist in the first place. 

The technology comes first.  Everything else is simply a reaction to the invention. 

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