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Regular radio broadcasting began around 1920, and within two decades one voice could reach millions of homes at the same moment. Leaders used it to speak straight to the public: to reassure, to rally and to spread propaganda.

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On 2 November 1920 the station KDKA in Pittsburgh broadcast the results of the American presidential election, often counted as the start of commercial radio. The British Broadcasting Company followed in 1922. In Turkey, broadcasting began on 6 May 1927 from the basement of the main post office in Sirkeci, Istanbul; since hardly anyone owned a receiver, the sound was played through a loudspeaker above the building's door. From 1933 to 1944 President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave ‘fireside chats’, calm evening talks that during the war reached, on average, more than half of American radio listeners. In 1933, the year the chats began, Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, had a cheap set called the Volksempfänger, or ‘people's receiver’, put on sale so that as many Germans as possible could hear the regime.

Türkçe oku
Düzenli radyo yayınları 1920 dolaylarında başladı ve yirmi yıl içinde tek bir ses aynı anda milyonlarca eve ulaşır oldu. Liderler radyoyla halka doğrudan seslendi: kimi zaman güven vermek, kimi zaman insanları bir amaç etrafında toplamak, kimi zaman da propaganda yapmak için.

Pittsburgh'daki KDKA istasyonu 2 Kasım 1920'de ABD başkanlık seçiminin sonuçlarını yayınladı; bu yayın çoğu zaman ticari radyonun başlangıcı sayılır. Britanya'da BBC'nin öncülü British Broadcasting Company 1922'de kuruldu. Türkiye'de ilk yayın 6 Mayıs 1927'de İstanbul'da, Sirkeci'deki Büyük Postane binasının bodrum katından yapıldı. Neredeyse kimsenin radyosu olmadığı için yayın, binanın kapısının üstüne konan bir hoparlörden dinletiliyordu. ABD Başkanı Franklin D. Roosevelt 1933'ten 1944'e kadar “ocak başı sohbetleri” denen sakin akşam konuşmaları yaptı; savaş yıllarında bu konuşmaları ortalama olarak radyo dinleyicilerinin yarısından fazlası dinledi. Sohbetlerin başladığı 1933'te Hitler'in propaganda bakanı Joseph Goebbels, olabildiğince çok Alman rejimin sesini duyabilsin diye Volksempfänger, yani “halkın alıcısı” adlı ucuz bir radyoyu piyasaya sürdürdü.

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