Margot Wallström and the Volksempfänger

Napoleon spoke of the "press as the seventh great power." Its significance became politically visible with the beginning of the French Revolution

Joseph Goebbels using Napoleon's phrase spoke of the "radio as the eighth great power". He said "The November Regime [the Nazi term for the Weimar Republic] was not able to understand the full significance of the radio. Even those who claimed to have awakened the people and gotten them involved in practical politics were without exception almost blind to the possibilities of this modern method of influencing the masses"

Margot Wallström obviously thinks like Goebbels, but in this instance, Television is the 9th great power. In a speech today she said ....The newspapers people read and the TV and radio programmes they consume are almost always produced for a national or regional audience..... European issues, if they are seen at all, are seen through the filter of national-tinted spectacles. No wonder it is hard to get Europeans to agree what Europe is all about! .......How could this ‘Europe-wide arena’ or ‘European public space’ be created? Through Europe-wide TV and radio carrying programmes in several languages........

"One People, one Reich, one will and a glorious European Union future!"

In a speech given on 18 August 1933, Goebbels develops his thinking on the directions German radio would take (read here)

Margot's speech can be read from this link (Here)

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