Broadcasting as Internationalism

Abstract This chapter explores the idea that international broadcasting could promote direct contact and genuine understanding among different peoples, thus encouraging peace. It explains how utopian wireless internationalist rhetoric, and the initiatives of organizations like the International Broadcasting Union and the League of Nations, conflicted with the reality of radio propaganda. It also discusses the opposed capitalist and communist internationalisms of the Cold War and their impact on international broadcasting. It considers the effect of empire and decolonization on internationalist thinking about the wireless world. It also examines the role of Western discourses about human rights and the free flow of information. Case studies examine Portuguese imperial and colonial broadcasting, and the role of Radio Luxembourg in broadcasting across Europe before and during the Second World War.