The “invention” and “innovation” of pioneers is central to the conventional history of media such as radio, cinema, and news publishing. Innovators in the emergence of digital media have not had as much attention paid to their experiences. This research project examines the history of the emergence of Canadian broadcast technologies, with a view to transferring past media history projects to the present digital age—as a model for future oral histories and interviews with new media pioneers and innovators. Primarily focused on transcribing and examining existing interviews recording the perspectives of Canadian broadcast radio innovators, the project will also conduct original interviews with recent leaders in Canada’s digital communications industry to provide historical comparison, and to spur interest in completing and continuing earlier Canadian media history projects.
By investigating pioneering broadcasters at the centre of the last century of communication technologies’ transformation, and focusing on core elements of the catalysts of conversion from one medium to the next, the research will examine the role that these innovators had on the Canadian broadcasting scene and the technology as a whole. By using archived interviews from the Canadian Communication Foundation (CCF) Fonds and the Kenneth Bambrick Fonds, the research will encompass a wide range of innovative and historically significant perspectives on this process of technological change in Canada and the ever-evolving role the medium has held within Canadian social and cultural history.
