The medium needs a massage

My doctoral thesis was about the impact of the printing press a new information. technology on law and legal culture in the England of the 16th and 17th centuries.

- David Harvey

One of my associated "side studies" led to my continued interest in the growth and development of news media from print to radio and television - the latter two broadly categorised as "broadcast media".

The development of broadcast media differed from print media. With print media, the authorities were continually playing catch-up in trying to regulate the content and use of technology.

In the fledgling US, press freedom was guaranteed in the First Amendment to the Constitution, although a study of history reveals this was a hard-won battle.

Broadcast media, on the other hand, has always been subject to a large degree of state control.

Private radio may seem to be a given to today's audience but who can forget the frisson of delight as the ship Tiri sailed from the Viaduct Basin in 1966 to establish an offshore "pirate" radio station just beyond territorial waters between the Coromandel Peninsula and Great Barrier Island?