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Radio astronomy, as first applied by Penzias and Wilson, showed that all space is permeated by a low level of radiation. This is left over from the big bang at the beginning of the universe and is a major factor in proving the validity of Big Bang theory. The existence of the cosmic background radiation, which is everywhere the same, raises the question of the possibility of using it to define an absolute space, and therefore negating relativity theory. It turns out that relativity is still valid because it deals with the relations between observable objects, and is correct regardless of the existence of a background radiation.

This chapter describes the role of information technology in two electronic media industries over time: radio and TV. It describes their applications in business practices, recording and transmission of programs, role over the Internet, and the effects on firms in these industries, beginning with transistor radios to the Internet.

In the United States, WWV is the obvious time standard to check a clock against. WWV's claimed time accuracy as transmitted in Boulder, Colorado is 10 microseconds short term, and 1 second in 3,000 years long term. The received short-term accuracy is reduced to 0.001 second due to variations in the time signal's transit time. An exception is the better received short-term accuracy of 100 microseconds in WWV's 60-kHz ground wave signal, which can be improved even further to 10 microseconds by using proper averaging techniques. A shortwave radio receiver is needed to pick up the WWV signal. This chapter describes an electronic method of accurately comparing a clock's time against WWV's time.

This chapter chronicles Prokofiev's activities from the spring of 1938 to the winter of 1939, a period that witnessed the loss of his ability to travel abroad, the arrest (at the height of the Stalinist purges) of his mentor Vsevolod Meyerhold, his embrace of the aesthetic of Socialist Realism in his opera Semyon Kotko, and his composition of a cantata in honor of Stalin's sixtieth birthday for Soviet Radio (the signing of the Molotov-Rippentrop non-aggression pact in 1939 necessitated a rewriting of the libretto of Semyon Kotko). Beyond these conformist works, the chapter also discusses Prokofiev's unknown music for athletic display.

This chapter discusses how Germans responded to other measures of the dictatorship that had little or nothing to do with race. Germans were subject to war measures acts that were introduced at the outset of the war to regulate social, economic, cultural, and political life. The ‘extraordinary radio measures’ of 1 September 1939, which forbad listening to foreign radio stations, deserve special attention because they pertained to efforts to police the private sphere. Until that point in time, the dictatorship had relied on cooperation between the police and the people. The new system produced a radical version of surveillance and control. However, the new radio measures represented something new, because the object of the exercise was not only to control public behaviour, but to determine what people heard, even in the privacy of their homes.

Migration by Odonata may illuminate patterns and evolution of insect migration in general. As aquatic/aerial carnivores dragonflies differ from most migratory insects, and because they are large and diurnal, observational techniques are available that are impossible in most other insects. Geographic analysis of genetic structure and stable and radiogenic isotope composition and use of newly developed radio-tracking techniques has been applied to migration in the North American dragonfly, Anax junius. Southbound migrants move up to 2,800 km. Developmental phenology suggests early (‘resident’) and late (‘migrant’) cohorts at most sites, but these groups appear genetically identical, and the species is essentially panmictic in eastern North America. Apparently environmental cues and physiological responses to photoperiod and temperature engender migratory behaviour. Successful radio-tracking of individual A. junius has revealed alternating periods of migration and energy replenishment, and responses to wind and temperature similar to avian migration.

During the early 1930s, governments created more powerful public broadcasting authorities in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, including the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (CRBC), the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), and the New Zealand Broadcasting Board (NZBB). In Canada, the Canadian Radio League (CRL) enlisted the help of the BBC to make the case for public broadcasting. However, the world economic depression hampered plans to develop broadcasting, both on a national basis in these countries, and on an imperial footing. The BBC's underfunded Empire Service did little to link up the British world, despite attempts to use sport and the monarchy to generate interest in its broadcasts. BBC recorded programmes or transcriptions similarly met with a mixed response, and the BBC for its part seemed unenthusiastic about taking reciprocal programmes from the dominions. BBC attempts to operate overseas on a rigorously public-service basis compounded its problems

This chapter develops the historical consideration of Shanghai opera begun in Chapter 1, looking now at huju in mid-20th-century Shanghai. Other than the appearance of female performers, in the period from approximately 1920 to 1949, there was an expansion of troupes with a concomitant increase in specialization; the rise of new performance venues and media, most obviously recorded sound and radio broadcasting; the influence of other artistic forms, such as the spoken drama and film; and changing modes of musical learning. Distinctive schools of performance were created, several of which remain significant in terms of musical style today. Discussion of these factors is enclosed within an examination of musical place.

This chapter describes the content of the British Broadcasting Corporation's (BBC) radio programmes from 1923 to 1925. J.C.W. Reith believed that that to use a great invention for the purpose of entertainment alone would a prostitution of its powers and an insult to the character and intelligence of the people. However, in practice, it was difficult to draw a sharp dividing line between entertainment and education. This chapter explains that jazz bands, popular music, radio drama, and sketches by humorists figured regularly in BBC programmes during this period.

This chapter describes the role of broadcasting in Germany's blitzkrieg attack in Europe. Though there were regular radio messages that broadcast the move of German forces, they were not able to accurately predict the true target of the Germans. This is because Holland, Belgium, Sweden, and the Balkans were all equally possible objectives of Germany. In addition, attention to German plans on the Western Front was diverted by both the German and by the Italian radio.

The first section of this chapter explores a theory of the acoustical unconscious and how it can be applied to listening to radio. The notion of an acoustical unconscious is largely derived from Walter Benjamin’s reflections on radio and the optical unconscious. In the second part of the chapter, the author argues that the motif of ambiguity in Günter Eich’s famous radio play, Dreams  (1951), which decenters the listeners’ own sense of self and what is real, taps into an acoustical unconscious that forces listeners to awaken to and contend with the collective history of which they are a part.

After his own group disbanded, Henderson began writing arrangements for Benny Goodman's band to play on a network radio program called Let's Dance. The Henderson-Goodman collaboration has been variously interpreted as a challenge to the popular music industry and as a formulaic reinforcement of its values. Recognizing merit in both views but accepting neither as entirely apt, this chapter explores several arrangements — including “Blue Skies”, “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea”, and “King Porter Stomp” — in musical detail in the first effort to identify the elements of the mainstream swing style that has been termed “Hendersonese‘. The analytical method combines examination of Goodman's recordings and the many scores and parts of the arrangements now held in the Goodman collections at the Yale Music Library and the New York Public Library, and it insists on understanding musical style in the context of the structure of a network radio program.

Fletcher Henderson is widely known as an important figure in jazz history, but he has been viewed in problematic ways that do not fully reflect the nature of his music and career as a pianist, bandleader, and arranger-composer. Henderson's influence may be better understood by seeing him as a catalyst for musical collaboration and change. His musical relationships were essential to his success, and his versatility and professionalism shaped a unique career. Henderson contributed to jazz in the early 20th century when middle-class African Americans increasingly challenged conventional views about race, and when the music industry intensified its efforts to exploit the new media of radio and recordings. Taking these trends into consideration with a critical review of Henderson's written arrangements, performance history, biography, and recordings, Henderson emerges as having a considerably more complex relationship to the jazz tradition — and the history of music in the United States — than demonstrated by previous inquiry.