Communications and media

This chapter explores the global history of communications and media in the interwar world. The chapter puts into dialogue a range of case studies from around the world which existing historiographies have typically treated separately. Comparing and contrasting these case studies reveals the asymmetrical ways in which media and communication developed in this period, reflecting wider geopolitical, economic, and social inequalities. It also demonstrates both the extent and the limits of global consciousness for contemporaries. At the same time, the chapter offers new perspectives on the interwar as a periodization for the history of communications and media, and the extent to which the two World Wars can be said to have bookended change.