Songs Across the Waves: The Music of Radio Bari

On May 24, 1934, the newly established Radio Bari in Southern Italy began its first Arabic-language broadcasts. The radio station emerged as part of a broader system of national radio, the EIAR or Ente italiano audizioni radiofoniche. Begun between 1926 and 1928, the network invested deeply in distributing state propaganda within the borders of Italy. Radio Bari, the project of Galeazzo Ciano, director of the Italian Press office, was the first state-run station to transmit programs in Arabic in the Mediterranean. The radio station’s explicit anti-colonial stance quickly alarmed ruling forces across the Mediterranean. This dissertation takes as a point of departure the musical programming of Radio Bari, which stood as some of the most compelling and popular sounds crossing the airwaves.