The importance of the radio proved to be very important way to connect people, and it "made the crowd into the people" (pg 208). It made a sense of community amongst the people, not matter what differentiated them, people could listen to the radio wherever they were, and whoever they were. I thought that "The Hora do Brazil" was really interesting. Since the radio was so popular and widely listened to, Getulio Vargas made all the radio stations in Brazil broadcast on hour of political information in the form of speeches, announcements and more. However, no one listened to it, and some stations refused to play it. This is something that I think would still happen today, because when people like politics and free time to be separate events, something I would compare to ads online, which I think everyone skips because they don't want government messages or advertisements to interfere with leisure time. What I found interesting was that the only time that Vargas really had the attention of the radio was in his suicide note.
Document 7.1 was very skeptical, as it says in the textbook that critics have said for a long time the The Times have purposefully chosen less attractive events in Latin America, and specifically written in negative ways. This brings up the question of how realistic the the report of the event was. the reporter shows her biased view by stating "The Presidents acceptance was unqualified" and also when judging about how long it took Senora Peron to make a decision, and then not making an appearance on the radio. The reporter overall seems unprofessional, as I think reporters are normally supposed to be unbiased and just state the fats as they happen without expressing their own personal opinion.
Document 7.2 and 7.3 are different versions of the speech made by Peron, and Dawson explains that 7.2 was the version that was never actually said, likely because it was the speech that was written but not said, maybe because of the reactions of the crowd. In 7.3 the crowd is very involved, and the speech had to be taken in another direction to calm the crowd and please them.
That's a great point that the radio creates a sense of community no matter who or where the people were. It makes an invisible more equal audience, I guess the downfall of these types of audiences is the ability to manipulate what is said and removed in documentation when it has such a large impact.
ReplyDeletejournalistic integrity is an interesting concept that you have brought up. In the western english speaking world journalists are just supposed to report the news and not spin it to their point of view. However others cultures believe that it is necessary for a reporter to put their own personal point of view into a report, make it more of a story. Journalistic integrity and standards vary around the world. This can lead to interesting clashes when travelling and one must be aware of potential bias. Even in the western world where bias is not supposed to exist but most certainly does. Latin America also has a troubled history with media censorship and state control. In the past this has been quite prevalent and even today problems arrive between state and private media and the control demanded by one over the other.
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