Europe in the Airwaves
European historiography and the literature about the history of ideas of Europe generally acknowledges the important role of infrastructures in Europe. However, only scant attention goes both to the factual construction of these infrastructures, and to the ways in which ideas about the nation-state, 'Europe', and the world have materialised in these infrastructures over time. 'Europe in the Airwaves' has been the last project of the TIE Project, starting in August 2005. The project explicitly addresses these issues by concentrating on the broadcasting infrastructures radio and television, with a clear emphasis on radio.
Since its earliest days there has been a rich interconnection between ideas about the nation, 'Europe', the world and the act of transmitting radio and television broadcasts. The broadcasting technologies radio and television by nature do not adhere to boundaries of nation-states or regions, at least when we exclude transmissions by cable or wire. Broadcasting signals travel freely through the air and can be received everywhere the signal reaches. The airwaves, or ether, is a limited resource in the sense that only a restricted number of transmissions can be sent without creating chaos on the receiving end. Both the fact that signals cross borders and that the ether is a limited resources compel international collaboration for a successful development of broadcasting.
Europe in the Airwaves focuses on the manner in which various transnational broadcasting infrastructures, that is specifically radio and television, have been built in Europe in the period 1925-1989, and on the role that ideas of the nation-state, Europe and world views have played in specific broadcasting infrastructure construction projects.
I will focus on individuals and international (non)governmental organisations that have been involved in broadcasting infrastructure building on the international level. These system builders all had their own views of what Europe was and what it should become. Furthermore, the project focuses on two different types of broadcasting infrastructures. It concentrates on nationally owned infrastructures that are meant for international broadcast transmissions like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), and on infrastructures of international cooperation. National broadcasting organisations together established the International Broadcasting Union (IBU) in 1925 in order to coordinate the allocation of wavelengths and the international relaying of programmes all over Europe. Often broadcasting organisations were involved in international cooperation and meanwhile constructed nationally owned international networks to transmit their own (national) ideas across borders. I will examine whether these types of networks simply co-existed or if these created tensions.
My project is structured alongside both thematic and chronological lines. I will start by finding out how the two types of infrastructures developed, how they operated and which purposes they served. Especially the diffusion of the various infrastructures will provide insight into the peoples and places that system builders included in their Europe. I will proceed with my first case study regarding the development of the international network of cooperation instigated by the IBU, and examine to what extent throughout 1925-1989 it has developed into an infrastructure that exceeded the level of the nation-state. The remaining cases will deal with the role of ideas of the nation-state, Europe and the world in specific projects. The first case concentrates on the Interbellum, the period in which broadcasting fully developed and gained its place alongside technologies such as the telegraph and the telephone. The growth of radio transmissions in the early 1920s increasingly led to chaos in the ether as people started to broadcast on the same wavelength. To resolve this problem, national broadcasters in Europe together founded the IBU. Throughout the Interbellum various international organisations closely cooperated. The IBU for instance held close relationships with the International Telegraph Union (ITU) and the League of Nations, in order to allocate wavelengths and create excellent international circumstances to relay programmes. Which visions of the nation-state, Europe and the world did these organisations pursue? What other motives lay behind the international construction and coordination of broadcasting? One of the important issues these organisations together had to deal with was the issue of illicit propaganda. The IBU strove after a friendly international cooperation amongst national broadcasters in order to create peace and rapprochement between the peoples in Europe. To achieve this goal the IBU urged its members not to broadcast harmful information about the governments of other nations. IBU intensely lobbied at the League of Nations for a formal regulation against illicit propaganda by individual national broadcasting organisations.
The final case concentrates on the Cold War period (1945-1989) in which the United States constructed two international institutions Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, which transmitted news from the Western World to the other side of the 'Iron Curtain'. By that time the IBU was dissolved and two new international institutions were established in order to coordinate broadcasting in Europe on an international level: the Western European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the Eastern European International Organisation for Radio and Television (OIRT). Both organisations built an international infrastructure, Eurovision and Intervision, through which international direct broadcasts could take place as well as international programme exchange. Throughout most of the period there was frequent contact between the EBU and OIRT. RFE claimed it was providing an alternate home service for the nations it was broadcasting to and it included 'Europe' in its name. What motivated them to claim that they were an 'European' broadcaster? And how was their contact with the EBU and OIRT, two organisations that strove for cooperation? Throughout the Cold War television developed into a widespread technology and increasingly was viewed as the new 'Window to the world'. What influence did the spread of television have on international radio infrastructure developments?
