This paper outlines the course of development of radio communication in Canada from the earliest days to the present, looking at some of the factors that influenced its direction as well as at the scientific and technological breakthroughs that made possible and improved and expanded its applications in society. It begins with a lengthy discussion of the history of non-broadcast radio communication in Canada. A brief description of the basic scientific principles upon which radio communication is based follows. An examination of the evolution of radio technology from the earliest mathematical equations and laboratory experiments through the rudimentary systems devised by the first inventors in the field and into the modern era of fully electronic radio technology concludes the paper. Most of the information is taken from government records, both archival and published.

This book attempts to capture the nature and history of marine radio communications in Canada, based largely on first-person accounts, beginning from Marconi's invention and the establishment of the first commercial marine radio station in North America. The role of marine radio in protecting ships and their crews is noted throughout, including the participation of Canadian radio operators in such disasters as the sinking of the Titanic and the Empress of Ireland. Other topics covered include the establishment of marine radio networks, transatlantic communications, Coast Guard radio, marine traffic services, and radio navigation.

A distinctive blend of history, geography, government, economics, and biculturalism meant that communication systems and the mass media evolved differently in Canada than in either the United States or Europe. Bringing together twenty-six articles that range in subject from colonial newspapers in the early 1800s to music television in the 1980s, Communication History in Canada provides the historical foundation for a thorough contextual analysis of modern-day media and communication in this country. From Marshall McLuhan and Harold Innis to Mary Vipond and Will Straw, the authors in this volume represent a wide cross-section of disciplines, including history, communication studies, sociology, journalism, political science, and film studies. Their essays are grouped in five sections: Time, Space, Technology, and Nation, which explores the relationship between media, society, and human thought; Postal Systems and Telecommunications, which centres on the telegraph, the telephone, and computers; Print Mass Media, which describes the origins and diffusion of newspapers and magazines, with a particular emphasis on commercialization through advertising and market research; Broadcast Media, which charts the rise of radio broadcasting in the inter-war years and of television broadcasting from the 1950s through the 1980s; and Cultural Industries, which examines film and sound recording.

Communicating in Canada's Past evolved out of essays presented at the inaugural Conference on Media History in Canada of 2006, which brought together media historians from across the disciplines and from both French and English Canada. The first collection of its kind, this volume assembles both well-established and up-and-coming scholars to address sizable gaps in the literature on media history in Canada. Communicating in Canada's Past includes a substantial introduction to media history as a field of study, historiographical essays by senior scholars Mary Vipond, Paul Rutherford, and Fernande Roy, and original research essays on a range of subjects, including print journalism, radio, television, and advertising. Editors Gene Allen and Daniel J. Robinson have provided a sophisticated, wide-ranging introduction for those who are new to media history while also assembling a valuable collection of new research and theory for those already familiar with the field.