Domesticating the Airwaves

‘Nationalising Hundreds and Thousands of Women’: a domestic response to a national problem

“…They brought a range of competing expert opinions and informal advice to housewives and mothers in their own homes. 45 In the ongoing debates over domesticity in the 1920s and 1930s, rural housewives had identified themselves as the heart of the nation, and saw their domestic practices as the ideal to which others should aspire. 46 As Elizabeth Roberts has argued, the functions of domestic management, being a 'good manager' and allocating scarce resources defined women as good working-class housewives and mothers in the 1920s and 1930s.…”

‘The Isolated Men in the Back of Beyond’: Masculinity and the BBC Empire Service, 1932–45

“…The illustration she provides from the Radio Times indicates two versions of male-centred home spaces presented to readers in Britain: one is that of the isolated white exile sitting outside his tent, the other of a group of non-white 'natives' gathered around a radio set. 67 Such images were surely intended to be striking examples of the 'otherness' of empire radio practices for the benefit of home audiences. Outdoor listening in itself was something the BBC did not generally approve of, due to the distractions, and came to be associated with non-white listeners in later years.…”

“…As Andrews observes, drawing on the work of Susan Douglas, it is important to understand 'broadcasting not as a one-way medium but as structured and moulded by "the imaginary listener with whom the broadcaster is always in dialogue"'. 15 The BBC archive includes internal documents, programme schedules, official publicity, and correspondence with government departments, providing insights into how staff attempted to cater to, and how they perceived, their overseas audience in gendered terms and how this changed over time. They did not simply send out radio waves from London into the ether; listeners' letters informed broadcast content and approach.…”

Radio at Home: BBC Drama and the Domestic Listener, 1935–1942

“…Such listening merely incorporated the "public" sphere of broadcasting into the mundane domestic world without an attempt to delineate its "difference."' 34 An article from 1936 describes how 'the good listener listens', pointing out that 'He does not combine listening with conversation, coughing, sneezing, French knitting and switching over to a different wavelength at half minute intervals. These occupations may well be delightful in themselves but I prefer my listening neat.'…”