Appropriation of colonial broadcasting : a history of colonial broadcasting/ Elizabeth L. Enriquez

The death of historical writing on early radio in the Philippines is partly due to the loss of documents and records of prewar radio in the country resulting from the massive destruction brought about by the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during the Second World War. The other reason is the nature of the medium of radio broadcasting: its signals are ephemeral - gone the moment a word, a musical note, or a sound effect goes on air. Unlike the print media and film, which leave concrete evidence of their production that researchers may scrutinize, radio texts require no prior creation of a tangible record. For the first time, a construction of the history of early radio in the Philippines is attempted through the author's painstaking examination of archival records, extant publications, and a private memorabilia as well as interviews of radio broadcasters during the period. Author Elizabeth L. Enriquez, who includes a collection of rare music and sound recordings in the supplementary compact disk, carefully assesses radio broadcasting in the country from its birth in 1922 until the declaration of Philippine Independence from the United States in 1946 - in the context of colonization and war - and proposes that Filipino broadcasters did not simply imitate the American broadcasters who introduced the cultural practice but also appropriated the medium to claim space for the expression of the local culture. (Source: http://www.arkipelagobooks.com)