When Nigeria launched radio broadcasting in 1935, the Governor, Sir Bernard Bourdillon, described it as a miracle made possible by obscure technical processes, and urged listeners to focus on its benefits and reliability. This perspective may have endured, because the phenomenon of radio has been celebrated for connecting people and places, as well as facilitating the exchange or circulation of information but its links to the telegraph remain an enigma. This paper offers an extensive analysis of telegraphy as radio’s underlying technology, assessing both its achievements and shortcomings. It problematizes the trajectory of broadcast technology in Nigeria and makes several original contributions. First, it contends that the telegraphic origins of radio represented much more than an enabler and was decisive in shaping both its capabilities and impact as a tool connecting people and places. Second, it argues that telegraphy was an important bridge between print and broadcast journalism, at once, signalling a break between analog and digital mass communications, and yet, symbolizing continuity as it synchronized the circulation of imperial agendas in both spheres. Third, it examines radio as a technology-in-use and employs user-oriented stage models to call for a re-evaluation of communication technologies in colonial contexts, informed by imperial ideals and yet grounded in indigenous reactions and realities. Finally, it proposes that the lessons learned from the successes and failures of radio technology, should guide current efforts at developing sustainable mass communication ecosystems that will protect and promote cultures of the Global South.

The first radio station in the world has been founded in 1922. Initially used for experimental distribution, radio quickly became a competitor to newspapers agencies. Gradually, radio began to broadcast music on its airwaves.
Originally, radio is described as a radio set or a radio receiver. It is an electronic device designed to capture, select and decode radio waves emitted by radio transmitters via an
antenna. It radiates electromagnetic waves. The signal transmitted by these waves can be a broadcasting program.
The microphone is an electroacoustic transducer. It is able to convert an acoustic signal into an electrical signal. The introduction of microphones and technologies of amplification in radio broadcasts have improved sound quality and brought better comfort for listeners.
During the first half of the 1920s, Japan developed its pre-war industries and technologies with the introduction and development of electric media such as radio, among others things.
Taking up the concept of the BBC, the Japanese government of that time created Tôkyô Hôsô Kyoku which broadcasted for the first time on March, 1st 1925. In the same year, radio
stations were developed in Nagoya and Ôsaka. They were the first radio stations in Japan and in Asia. The Japanese Nationalist government soon became aware of the ideological power of radio and brought it under control. Thus, as early as 1926, the NHK communication
monopolized the airwaves.

Premodern Japan saw the emergence of a system of waterways, with Edo (Tokyo) and Osaka as its focal points. Inevitably, river transportation played a very important role in this system, but by the last years of the Tokugawa shogunate, the navigability of those rivers had deteriorated. After the Meiji restoration, the improvement of the rivers was a priority of the newly established government, but, as the railway network rapidly grew, the emphasis of the improvement work gradually shifted from navigability to flood protection. Indeed, the railways were regarded as replacing rather than complementing inland navigation in the modernising Japan.
This technological choice was made in a complex socio-political context. Out of fear of the consequences of capital investments by Western powers, Japan’s modernisation was financed by a heavy tax on land. However, disgust over the tax fuelled a popular movement that demanded freedom and people’s rights and which also attacked the perceived neglect of flood protection by the government. In contrast to this neglect, railway construction accelerated under elaborate governmental protection, mobilising private funds, including ex-samurai rentiers.
The problem of river improvements was enthusiastically discussed at the first Imperial Diet as well, which passed the first River Law in 1896, which emphasised the state’s role in flood protection. The law gave the coup de grace to inland navigation, which was still thriving in the lower rivers around Tokyo, while also being compatible with the policy of creating enlightened and modernised subjects who were willing to support the imperial government.

The Anglo–American “special relationship,” which had been established in the early 20th century, promoted the introduction of television and nuclear power in post-war Japan.
Before and during World War II, as Britain and the US cooperated to develop nuclear weapons, companies and engineers in both countries developed their own technologies to launch television broadcasting and establish separate technical standards.
During the Cold War, despite increased British vulnerability around such issues as colonialism, both countries allied in opposition to the Soviet Union and communism. Even as the US and Britain banned Japan from its own television production and nuclear research, they worked to prevent the growth of communism in Japan. After lifting the ban on these technologies, the US enforced the adoption of technical television standards in Japan in 1953 without British support.
Britain and the US cooperated in promoting the peaceful use of atomic energy in Japan to eliminate nuclear protests that could lead to communism and promote industrialization. By May 1955, the US trailed Britain in the development of commercial nuclear reactors, although the US Atomic Energy Peace Mission had visited Japan before its British counterpart. Therefore, Japan adopted a British-made nuclear reactor in 1959, and the first commercial nuclear power station began operations in Japan.
While Japan regained its independence, Britain gained the same status as the US in the context of nuclear power , made possible by the “special relationship” between Britain and the US.