Page - 38 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Volume 3/2017

38 Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 3 2o17 Patricia Jäggi | Cosmopolitan Noises Waves of emigration at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century produ- ced numerous Swiss expat communities, especially in the Americas. For a country with 2.3 million inhabitants in 1850 and a just over 4 million in the 1930s, the half million Swiss that emigrated between 1845 and 1939 was a proportionately large number of people (Ritzmann-Blickenstorfer 1997, 259). The Swiss international radio started broadcasting in the 1930s, targeting Swiss emigrants and their descendants abroad. After the Second World War, the station widened its programme activities to reach foreign, Non-Swiss listeners as the main target group. In 1957 90% of the listener letters were from foreigners interested in the country. Scholars such as Arjun Appadurai and Noel B. Salazar describe the connection of migra- tion, mobility, and modern communication media as a crucial development since the late 20th century (Appadurai 2000, Salazar 2016). The growing mobility of people is mirrored in the growing importance of new information and communication media. Transcontinen- tal migration of people produces an ever-higher circulation of information, images, sounds, and concepts or lifestyles across the planet. International radio was the first area-wide, glob- ally acting, and nearly real-time medium of the 20th century and the cradle of global infor- mation and communication as we know it today. To date, international radio broadcasting has mainly been regarded in its political instrumentalisation as propaganda during the con- flicts of the Cold War. An appreciation of its role as social, cultural, and sensory connector is still missing. This paper undertakes an auditory journey beyond the informational aspect of radio. Using listening as a methodological framework, the article reconstructs listening to international radio from a phenomenological point of view. Recounting the listeners’ expe- riences, first in the archive of the Swiss Shortwave Service, and then in the radio ether from today, it follows the presence and making of atmosphere on the side of radio production and on the side of radio transmission and reception technology. These examples of background noises, soundscapes, and acoustic interferences in shortwave radio listening reveal the value of the human and non-human creation of sonic atmospheres for a sensory history and cul- ture of the 20th century, and the resulting auditory experience of cosmopolitanism. Historical background In the following I will refer to the Swiss Shortwave Service that operated from 1938 to 2004. It offered radio broadcasts for expats and non-Swiss in three of the national languages, as well as programmes in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and Esperanto. In comparison with the BBC Overseas Service, which offered 69 languages, the Swiss Broadcasting Corpo- ration was a very small but quite popular broadcaster in the listeners’ clubs’ yearly ratings. In comparison to former colonial empires that used radio as an informative supporter of imperialistic power, the Swiss Shortwave Service mainly focused on Swiss expats in its early years. After World War II, radio became increasingly important as an international actor connecting people worldwide. Due to economic and political changes during the Cold War, foreigners became the leading target group for the Swiss (and other international broad- casters). Emigration was no longer a big issue, as Switzerland flourished through a growing industry and steadily developed into a wealthy state that dealt more with immigration than