The Hardware of Soft Power: Radio, Decolonisation and the Projection of British Global Influence, c. 1939-1989 (Prof. Simon POTTER, University of Bristol)

Faculty Lounge (Run Run Shaw Tower 4.30)

Soft power requires hardware.  Radio can carry cultural content, news, and overt propaganda across national borders, seemingly effortlessly, but this requires substantial investment in infrastructure. Often, finding a place where that infrastructure can be built raises significant geopolitical complications. From the eve of the Second World War, British plans to project UK influence around the […]

Radio and the End of Empire: The BBC & Decolonisation in India (Prof. Chandrika KAUL, University of St. Andrews)

Faculty of Arts Conference Room, 4.36, 4/F Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, University of Hong Kong

Building on my monograph, Reporting the Raj, the British Press and India, the focus here is on radio and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) over the climactic decades 1920s-1940s. It is based on extensive research undertaken for a forthcoming book, Broadcasting the Raj: The BBC and India (OUP 2026). The talk will examine the ways […]