Week 1, Task 2: Joseph Goebbels - Radio as the eighth great power.

I found this text very interesting. Renowned for his constant stream of Nazi propaganda throughout their whole regime, Goebbels point of view on the use of radio in Nazi Germany was very interesting. At the beginning of his speech he refers to Napoleon's acknowledgment of the press as the seventh great power, as he fully understands the power of the press over society. Whoever controls the press controls everything that society views or hears, whether they believe what they are being told or not, boiling down to the passive/active audience theories. Goebbel sees radio as something that should be used in a political way because of its ability to captivate and enthrall the masses, making it a target rife for political messages broadcasting. However, because of his renown for propaganda it is difficult to understand whether he really sees Radio as a positive thing for the German public or for the government to further their messages.

Goebbel goes on to argue that the motives of the government were not random. Each of their broadcasts and speeches were prepared for a purpose, to ensure their procession into being the government of the country. Clearly in retrospect, the German public must have felt the power of the radio and have been greatly swayed by it, as from our view in the future, we can see that the Nazi party ascended to power, and it was not just from a lucky election. They knew what they were doing. "It would not have been possible for us to take power or to use it in the ways we have without the radio and the airplane. It is no exaggeration to say that the German revolution, at least in the form it took, would have been impossible without the airplane and the radio." He knows that what was new technology at the time was vital to their success, as people always show a great interest in new technology, whether it be condemning or praising it. Radio was a great way to reach a mass audience at a time with a single broadcast, whilst the airplane allowed them to travel around Germany giving personal appearances and speeches just like this one.

I think Radio today is very different to how Goebbels perceives it. For us today, it is mainly a source of entertainment or information. Political party broadcasts are still present on Radio, but are not as widely listened to as they would have been. As we also have such a large choice of radio stations, the variety and diversity present for us is vast enough that we can switch over and ignore political broadcasts if we so wish.

As for theories on the internet and its growth, I couldn't find much information that was actually useful. As with any new technology, people were skeptical at first, but now it is so widely used in society that we do not have many problems with it. The main example of a moral panic I could think of is the danger of paedophiles online. Children are thought to be at an incredibly high risk of paedophiles in chat rooms, and through "grooming" of a child they slowly gain enough trust to meet them. This is a fine example of a moral panic, as while yes, it does unfortunately happen, it is nowhere near as frequent as the media make it seem.

Did anyone manage to find any high profile studies of the internet?