Radio Culture in Cold War Hong Kong

Studies of Cold War broadcasting tend to focus on radio as a predominant medium of propaganda. This essay turns the attention to radio's role in shaping new cultural identities across ethnic and social divisions in Hong Kong during the 1950s and 1960s, a time of mass migration and circulation of people, ideas, technologies, and cultural forms. Radio was the leading conduit of communication and information. The three radio stations - Radio Hong Kong, Radio Rediffusion, and Hong Kong Commercial Radio - produced diverse programmes broadcast in varied dialects and languages. From the communal listening of the 1950s to the introspective listener in the 1960s and its burgeoning city life, the vibrant radio programmes in Hong Kong contributed to its social rehabilitation and forged new cultural identities and sensibilities. The rapid development of radio culture also prompted a new round of innovation in other sectors of the arts and media, such as traditional-style storytelling, the newly migrated shidai qu, radio plays, and film. Dynamic intermedia experiments such as the incorporation of radio into film entail new forms of expression and representation, and explore the interaction of media, technology, and the human sensorium.