Mediascape and Soundscape Two Landscapes of Modernity in Cold War Berlin, in: Philipp Broadbent/Sabine Hake (eds.), Berlin Divided City 1945-1989, New York: Berghahn, 2010, S. 56-65

The various zones of contact, con ict, and tension between publishing
houses, television, and broadcasting stations in East and West Berlin determined
Cold War Berlin'’s mediascape in the 1950s and 1960s. Arjun
Appadurai uses the term mediascape to describe the production of media
content, symbols, and narratives in a competitive setting of distribution
channels, such as broadcasting stations (2000: 27––47, 33). The producer
of content is keen on securing the transmission of an intended meaning
to viewers and listeners without being distorted through acts of consumption
or by adding additional meaning.
This essay examines these zones by discussing the organizational
structure of radio broadcasting in Berlin in the 1950s and 1960s and by
further focusing on the strategies of West Berlin broadcasting stations
adapting to new kinds of programs, and realigning and modernizing
spe ci c areas of broadcasting, especially youth and music programs.
The very sound of the music broadcast by radio stations provides a  eld
in which they can claim a distinct identity, and in which the political
pur pose of a radio station must negotiate with its fundamental need to
attract the majority of a target audience. This essay argues that the commercially
competitive agenda of the media market is a crucial force that
drives broadcasting institutions to rede ne themselves in a constantly
shifting environment of listening behavior. The consumption of music
via small devices that are capable of receiving and replaying music is a
prominent feature of popular culture.