Book review: Radio in the Global Age

Hendy, David (2000), Radio in the Global Age, (revised edition), Polity Press, Cambridge, 260pp. ISBN 0 7456 20698 Reviewed by Barbara Alysen The first thing that strikes you about David Hendy’s comprehensive overview of contemporary radio is that it exists at all. Radio, as the author notes early on, is often overlooked among the modern media. The medium McLuhan designated as “hot” in a world he predicted would favour “cool” media (p. 1), radio has survived; thrived even. In Australia, for example, Australians have between them some 36 million radios and more than half of all households boast five or more sets (Radio Marketing Bureau, 2000, 242). But as much as radio is ubiquitous, it remains “taken for granted” and a media minnow (p. 2-3). Radio, Hendy (p. 5) says early on, “needs to be reconnected with the mainstream of media and communication studies”.