“The Song of Love”: An Archaeology of Radio History and Surveillance Capitalism

The mass distribution of advertising and information via radio propelled capitalism into a new logic of accumulation, penetrating private spaces with the collection and distribution of commodified information. Archaeological, ethnographic, and archival evidence about the heterogenous ways radio has been deployed, received, resisted, and adopted reveals that our system of monopolized mass media and surveillance capitalism is not an inevitable extension of technological advancement. Rather it is a choice, accommodation, and contingency brokered by hegemonic forces and diverse publics. Examples of radio usage from throughout history, however, demonstrates that cracks in the capitalist disimagination machine have been present since the beginning.