Divine and Diabolic Radio: Electromagnetic Spectrum, Aesthetics and Latin America

Paulo José Olivier Moreira Lara
2021
This work investigates the idea of wireless communication and the construction of the electromagnetic spectrum from a perspective of the Latin American cultural studies and Radio studies. Demonstrating that the wireless forms of expression have had socio-historical particularities and different socio-political manifestations through time, I identify diverse forms, functions and qualities that were given to the spectrum in order to understand what sort of political influence is exerted by the
more » ... ional organization of radio waves. The hypothesis presented here is that the current control over the wireless infrastructure should be characterised in terms of an aesthetic domination of colonial sort. As the "birth" of the spectrum is found in the "baroque" sciences of the sixteenth century, I also note the radical shift that the notion took with the emergence of industrial capitalism, its technical instrumentality and political economy, arguing that the modern uses and interpretations of wireless media is grounded in colonial conflicts over aesthetic sovereignty and natural resources beyond the disputes over standard regulations, democratic allocation, freedom of expression, access to technology and technical management. Through the study of three experiences of radio in Latin America, I highlight the aspects of interference, illegality, colonial discipline and the control of the territory as manners by which the coloniality of power is expressed within the radio universe. The contribution that this work intends to offer to the areas of media studies, politics and cultural studies is to establish a relationship between the history of the idea (in this case, the construction of order, function and quality) of the electromagnetic spectrum and its impact on the solidification of a domination of modern and colonial kind based on the study of the phenomenon of radio waves and their uses applied for communication and expression in determined Latin American social realities.
doi:10.25602/gold.00030315 fatcat:vioxj5fnlrf53fqovn72ivehnm