Feminine Frequencies

Broadcasting the ‘Spanish Woman’. Nationalism and Female Radio Programmes During the Franco Regime

“…27 Kate Lacey poses an engaging argument by envisaging the role of radio in bringing to light the contradictions of modernisation. 28 She appeals to its innovative sense at the same time that it restored gender relations in a traditional way. The relationship that developed between housewives and the radio in Nazi Germany can be extrapolated to the case of the Spanish dictatorship, which outlined women radio listeners as customers and consumers in the same way.…”

The Savior of the Nation? Regulating Radio in the Interwar Period

“…Bredow saw a German public infl icted with "political fatigue" aft er World War I and the strife of the immediate postwar years. 35 Radio should distract people from common cares and elevate their spirits. Th is would make them more eager to work and unify them into a body of citizens beyond politics.…”

“…Though a contested process, radio was also feminized as a domestic, non-political arena in contrast to the male political sphere. 46 In Germany, Ernst Voss initially tried to create radio as an aural equivalent to cinema. Voss applied in 1922 for a broadcasting license to the Postal Ministry.…”

“…Kate Lacey has argued for Germany that "the combined pressure of government and commercial interests" prevented radio's development as an independent medium. 90 Th is applies equally to Britain and the United States, for there was no such thing as a radio infrastructure independent of the state. Rather than see three separate radio systems in the 1920s, we might conceive of an intersecting matrix of state and commercial interests.…”