About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline



29 J. Radio & Audio Media 1 (2022)

handle is hein.journals/jradstud29 and id is 1 raw text is: JOURNAL OF RADIO & AUDIO MEDIA                           Routledge
2022, VOL. 29, NO. 1, 1-4
https://doi.org/10.1080/19376529.2022.2055066            Taylor&Francis Group
Editor's Remarks: Learning from History and
Recognizing Propaganda
Tony R. DeMars
This issue of the Journal, of Radio & Audio Media fits well with our current
times and readers should find familiar themes that are timely for contem-
porary media research. Co-editor Anne MacLennan and guest editor Nelson
Ribeiro have selected a strong variety of research built around our sympo-
sium theme Broadcasting in (De)Colonial Settings.
One of the interesting components of our special symposium issue is that
the articles cover different regions and different time periods (colonial/
postcolonial) but all point to the idea of international connections between
broadcasting systems in different world regions and countries, not only
under colonialism but also in more recent decades.
As scholars, we should have an ability to recognize propaganda compared
to neutral facts, yet the average person may be less engaged in recognition of
or concerns about what media and information effects can be within their
society. Spiral of Silence theory, defined as the tendency of people not to
speak up about policy issues in public-or among their family, friends, and
work colleagues-when they believe their own point of view is not widely
shared (Hampton et al., 2014, p. 3), is just one of the various means we can
use to demonstrate how certain voices within any given discourse can be
minimized.
Our guest editor contributes an important article to this edition. Nelson
Ribeiro is the principal investigator of the project Broadcasting in the
Portuguese Empire: Colonialism, Nationalism, Identity funded by the
Portuguese Science Foundation and the European Union, and this relation-
ship connects to why he is with us as guest editor of the symposium. In his
article, Ribeiro shows how Portugal, under dictator Ant6nio de Oliveira
Salazar, failed to recognize the importance of radio in the 1930s, leading to
dependence on colonial stations for the dissemination of colonialism.
Instead of the government, private radio clubs mostly owned the stations
set up in the African territories under Portuguese control (Ribeiro, 2022).
Continuing the international and historical angle, Morten Michelsen
reveals ways sound was used as a means of enculturation as much as it was
as information and entertainment. Michelson draws on his research as

© 2022 Broadcast Education Association