Uses of local ethnic television: Finland Calling (1962–2015) and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula

Finland Calling was a bilingual Sunday morning television program targeting Finnish Americans and airing on WLUC-TV, a local commercial station in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The show ran from 1962 to 2015, just over 50 years. This article uses it as a case study to argue that if we look beyond prime-time network programming, we can see that US television has not always promoted a homogeneous national culture; rather, it has at times been a resource for the development of distinctive local and ethnic cultures. Based on an analysis of Finland Calling episodes and written sources about the show, the article demonstrates that while the show’s primary target audience was the local Finnish American community, it also resonated with broader conceptions of Upper Peninsula culture, participated in Finnish American cultural activities at the North American level, and emphasized transnational connections between the Upper Peninsula and Finland.

Sharq al-Adna

Sharq al-Adna, or the Near East Arab Broadcasting Station, was a covert, British radio station that broadcasted in Arabic from 1941 to 1956, at first from Palestine before moving to Cyprus in 1948, where it posed as a commercial station but, in reality, was controlled by British Special Intelligence Services until the military commandeered it at the time of Suez. In the intervening fifteen years, its mainly Arab staff, loosely supervised by a small number of British personnel, broadcasted a mixture of music, drama, discussion, educational and religious programs, albeit with a subtle British slant to its news. In this article, which is based on archival sources, including the memoirs of some of those involved and some material originally published in Arabic, the author assesses the station’s contribution to British propaganda efforts in the Middle East and to the development of Arab broadcasting.

Informed & Educated

Using the Irish Radio Industry as a case study, this chapter illustrates how the Public Service Broadcaster (PSB), Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), was slow to react to change and the effect this had on the organisation’s competitiveness. This chapter analyses how RTÉ’s youth radio station, RTÉ 2fm, lost its place as the market leader to the competition including commercial station Beat and other stations as it resisted the required technological, social and economic change which ultimately affected its listenership. The author argues that the independent sector led the way in innovation and affected change which greatly benefited the industry as a whole and brought it into the digital age. This research was based on a methodology involving in-depth interviews, online surveys, textual analysis, direct observation and a longitudinal content analysis.

EUFONIA: RADIOJORNALISMO EDUCATIVO NO SEMIÁRIDO

A revista radiofônica Eufonia é um programa-piloto do projeto de extensão "Criação e Instalação da Rádio Universitária da Uneb", do curso de Jornalismo em Multimeios da Universidade do Estado da Bahia (Uneb), que, em dezembro de 2018, completou 12 anos ininterruptos no ar. Com a proposta de dar visibilidade ao contexto dos territórios semiáridos, o programa é veiculado em uma emissora comercial e cinco comunitárias, de quatro municípios: Petrolina e Orocó, em Pernambuco, e Juazeiro e Curaçá, na Bahia, além do site da Webtv da Uneb-Núcleo Juazeiro e das redes sociais. Por meio de dez quadros, com conteúdos que vão de literatura a eventos acadêmicos e da comunidade em geral, até dicas de cinema fora do circuito comercial, a revista promove a valorização da cultura local, levando educação aos ouvintes, com uma linguagem simples e um roteiro dinâmico. São 30 minutos semanais de interatividade com o público, em que o rádio funciona como uma plataforma que aproxima comunidade e meio acadêmico. O veículo de comunicação de maior alcance da população também contribui para a formação dos estudantes, que exercitam o fazer jornalístico sob o ponto de vista educativo e contextualizado com o Semiárido brasileiro. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Radiojornalismo; Jornalismo Educativo; Rádio; Educação; Semiárido. ABSTRACT The radio journal Eufonia is a pilot program of the extension project “Creation and Installation of Uneb University Radio,” of the Multimedia Journalism course of the State University of Bahia (Uneb), which in December 2018 completed 12 years uninterrupted in the air. With the proposal of giving visibility to the context of semiarid territories, the program is broadcast on one commercial station and five community stations from four different cities: Petrolina and Orocó, in the State of Pernambuco, and Juazeiro and Curaçá, in the State of Bahia, in addition to the Webtv website of Uneb - Campus Juazeiro - and social networks. With ten blocks with contents ranging from literature to academic events and from general community matters to tips of movies that are off the commercial circuit, the magazine promotes the appreciation of the local culture, bringing education to listeners with simple language and a dynamic script. There are thirty minutes of weekly interactivity with the public, in which the radio serves as a platform that brings the community and academia together. The communication vehicle that reaches the majority of the population also contributes to educate the students, who exercise the journalistic doing from the educational point of view and within the context of the Brazilian Semiarid. KEYWORDS: All-news radio; Educational Journalism; Radio; Education; Semiarid. RESUMEN La revista radiofónica Eufonía es un programa-piloto del proyecto de extensión "Creación e Instalación de la Radio Universitaria de Uneb", del curso de Periodismo en Multimedios de la Universidad do Estado da Bahía (Uneb), que, en diciembre de 2018, cumplió 12 años ininterrumpidos en el aire. Con la idea de dar visibilidad al contexto de los territorios semiáridos, el programa se transmite en una emisora comercial y cinco comunitarias, de cuatro municipios: Petrolina y Orocó, en Pernambuco, y Juazeiro y Curaçá, en Bahía, además de estar en la página web Webtv da Uneb-Núcleo Juazeiro y de las redes sociales. Por medio de diez cuadros, con contenidos que incluyen desde literatura a eventos académicos y de la comunidad en general, a sugerencias de cine fuera del circuito comercial, la revista promueve la valoración de la cultura local, llevando educación a los oyentes, con un lenguaje sencillo y un guion dinámico. Son treinta minutos semanales de interactividad con el público, en los que la radio funciona como una plataforma que acerca la comunidad y el medio académico. El medio de comunicación de mayor alcance de la población contribuye también a la formación de estudiantes, que se ejercitan en el quehacer periodístico bajo el punto de vista educativo y contextualizado con el Semiárido brasileño. PALABRAS CLAVE: Radio periodismo; Periodismo Educativo; Radio; Educación; Semiárido.

Colloquial features in the syntax of spoken media in Maribor

The article deals with the influence of colloquial syntax on the spontaneous non-prepared media discourse of professional presenters. It presents a syntactic analysis of radio program broadcasts on two Maribor radio stations, i.e. the commercial station Radio City and the Slovene public station Radio Maribor. Specifically, the paper focuses on typical syntactic colloquial features, i.e. incomplete syntactic patterns, interruptions, repetitions and corrections.

Novel Cruise Speed Highway Charging of Electric Vehicles in India

The utility of all-electric automobiles is limited by various factors. The most important one is the 'range anxiety'; this is a severe limitation on the adoption rates of battery electric vehicles (BEV). There is a periodic need to stop and re-charge or replace the batteries after traveling a relatively short distance. The long time needed to recharge the depleted battery usually necessitates exchanging the battery for a different one at each charging stop, similar to changing horses on a 19th century Stage Coach. Today three levels of recharging are available. Level 1 is using a home electrical system, taking roughly 8 hours to recharge the batteries after depletion at maximum range. Level 2 is charging from a commercial station, taking about 2 hours. Level 3 is high-current charging, which can complete the charging process in 30 minutes. Even Level 3 compares quite unfavorably to the 5 to 10 minutes needed to refill an automobile gasoline tank. Moreover, charging stations are not widely available outside major urban areas. for a few hours at highway speeds, are quite prohibitive. Obviously, these are major obstacles in increasing the market viability of electric automobiles. The issue addressed in this paper is an approach using emerging technologies to overcome the limitations of a BEV. With the current battery technology, the mass and volume needed to carry enough charge to travel. We address these issues by looking at the feasibility of charging automobiles while they are traveling at highway speeds. If this system is implemented, a BEV's effective range could be increased to match the range of an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle. This would imply that BEVs would be suitable for intercity highway travel, with the assurance of power being available on the go. We developed a model to optimize the number of wireless charging stations required depending on various factors. This model is discussed in detail later in the paper. As seen below, the requirement boils down to delivering roughly 1 kWh per charging station, while the automobile is moving at highway cruise speeds.

Britain's Channel 4: A TV Provider Caught Between Private Sector Funding and Its Cultural Mission

This article, which first appeared in Media Perspektiven 1 (1987), is published here for the first time in English. It offers an enlightening contemporary perspective, from the then German Federal Republic, on the innovation in European broadcasting which Channel 4 represented. It outlines the policy context which gave rise to the UK's fourth television channel and describes its unique, hybrid character as a commercial station funded by advertising revenue with a public service remit. It assesses the strengths and weaknesses of Channel 4's commissioning structure and identifies significant examples of its innovative programming, paying particular attention to its support for independent film. That emphasis is noteworthy since it was West German television's film-funding mechanism that provided the model on which Film on Four was based. The article recognises Channel 4's commitment to catering for minority audiences, to enabling broader access to programme-making and to commissioning work that was experimental in form and content. It is generous in suggesting that such a risk-taking cultural enterprise was only possible within the UK's mature and highly developed broadcasting ecology, but it remains cautious (perhaps presciently) of its sustainability in the expanding commercial marketplace of multi-channel television.

From the Street to the Screen: Characteristics of Protest Events as Determinants of Television News Coverage

Media attention is a crucial resource for demonstrators seeking to influence policy. This article assesses the determinants of television coverage for protest events. Police archive data for the city of Brussels is compared to newscast data of the biggest public and commercial station in Belgium (2003-2010). Results show that few demonstrations pass the television gates (11%). Above all, protest size accounts for newsworthiness. Disruptive and symbolic actions also attract the media spotlight, confirming drama and visuals as critical television news values. Whereas symbolism matters for media presence, it does not hold for headline (prominence) or length of coverage (volume). New social movements are especially likely to stage symbolic actions. As a consequence, their presence on the screen is less a function of their numeric weight in the street. Distinctive selection mechanisms are at work on the commercial and public broadcaster, suggesting that media ownership matters for news selection.

Plugging and programming: pop radio and record promotion in Britain and the United States

The radio networks of North America and Britain provide one of the most important promotional outlets for recorded music, setting programming agendas at radio stations and influencing the talent acquisition policies of record labels throughout the world. For many years there have been sharp contrasts in the way in which music radio has operated and been organised in these two countries. The promotion of records in Britain has mainly been directed towards one national non-commercial station, Radio 1, which plays an eclectic mixture of musical styles. In the United States radio promotion has been aimed across a complex of commercial stations which broadcast ‘narrowcast’ music very clearly defined according to various ‘formats’. However, the recent re-regulation of the broadcasting system in Britain has resulted in a proliferation of regional commercial stations that are responding to increasing competition by introducing narrowcasting policies similar to those of North America. With Radio 1's share of listeners declining and the prospect of national commercial stations being granted licences and further challenging Radio 1's dominance of pop broadcasting, it seems particularly pertinent to contrast the practices of record companies and radio stations in Britain and North America and highlight how they directly effect the production and consumption of pop music.