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Contributor:

Professor Robert Savage

Talk Title

Broadcasting and the Border: How partition influenced broadcasting on the island of Ireland

Talk Synopsis:

This talk explores the development of broadcasting in Ireland during the 1920s and how the new radio stations in Belfast and Dublin were affected (and constrained) by politics. It describes the growing popularity and influence of broadcast services and the impact of new technologies, competition and wider social changes on the work of programme-makers in the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and RTÉ. It reflects critically on aspects of editorial decision-making and output by both broadcasters, but suggests that despite ‘all of [their] inevitable failures and shortcomings, ‘independent public service media’ remain ‘an indispensable component of any truly democratic society.’

Short biography:

Professor Robert Savage is the Director of the Boston College Irish Studies Program and a member of the university’s History Department faculty.

Further Reading:

The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's Irish Troubles, Television, Conflict and Northern Ireland – Robert Savage
A Loss of Innocence? television and Irish Society 1960-1972 – Robert Savage
Broadcasting and Public Life, RTÉ News and Current Affairs 1926-1997 – John Horgan:
Luck and the Irish, A Brief History of Change from 1970 – Roy Foster
A Post-Nationalist History of Television in Ireland – Edward Brennan
2RN and the Origins of Irish Radio – Richard Pine

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