“In the radio age, the act of listening to the leader still connected the listener to power, but instead of something that was individually empowering, it made the crowd into the people”

The power of the spoken word is infinite, especially when it is said in a splitting improvised moment. Before the radio, there was this gap between the ruler and the ruled, every statement was written and revised, made for the educated and heard only by those in a position to witness these spoken moments.

And then there was the radio. Affordable and simple it connected people, it was the internet before the internet, everyone no matter their race class or gender were interconnected through the means of their airwaves. However, what started as an innocent beautiful thing was quickly politicized, with Governments trying to police what was being said and shared. And unsurprisingly, the Hora de Brazil, for example, failed miserably.

But how can we compare that to today in a world of careless covfefe tweets and a globalized conglomerate of ideas and thoughts all being spewed at any given time?

We can look to China who has banned certain websites, or North Korea. We can think about those who are excluded from this network. Will this continue or will they like the Brazilians who turned off their radio’s, fight back?