The Formation of the Genre System on Norwegian Broadcast Radio

Abstract

This article deals with the formation and first development of the radio genre system in Nor - way in the interwar years (1925-1940). It is shown that the programmes of the 1920s were mostly imperfect reproductions of existent cultural forms. Yet, a beginning modernization of the genre repertoire took place in the 1930s. Whereas the rudimentary genre repertoire of the 1920s was built up through a plain copying from other domains in society, the latter half of the 1930s saw the introduction of a more advanced genre-generating process whereby new genres were formed through a mixing of two or more existing norms. This article also identifies a number of developmental trends that had their slow start in the 1920s and would mark the evolution of Norwegian radio’s registers and genres ever since.