Airspace today is densely penetrated by Wi-Fi networks, GPS services, broadcasting and mobile phone signals. This process, what we call the "mediatization of the air", is not so new, as it began in the first two decades of the 20 th century with the advent of wireless telegraphy. Based on archival research, this paper shows that wireless telegraphy mediatized the air and made it an international matter of common interest for formerly disconnected realms. The mediatized air transformed meteorology, timekeeping, mobility, and transportation and challenged governance over aerial borders. Overall, this study on historical mediatization research contributes to telling a different story about mediatization by including an invisible and understudied phenomenon that today represents a basic and taken-for-granted infrastructure for global communication.

Examining radio development over a long time span from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century, in this article, we claim that radio history is broader than the history of broadcasting only. We suggest looking at radio history through the perspective of intermediality and inter-technology, drawing on five different examples: radiography, radiotelegraphy/radiotelephony, radar and satellites, radiomobile/mobile phones with regard to radio spectrum and packet radio networks, such as Wi-Fi. We demonstrate how and why these (and other) technologies should be considered parts of radio studies even though they do not represent classic examples of radio broadcasting. Overall, this intermedia and inter-technological perspective on radio history offers new ways of rethinking and reformulating the confines of radio studies, as well as contributes to a greater field of media studies.

What role do audiences play in the formation of the media? What influence do consumer practices have on media? This article explores the relationship between media and audiences from a historical and sociological perspectives. Using a literature review on audiences in media and communications history, this paper analyses the role of audiences in the formation of media and outlines the key terms and concepts for understanding the audiences of different media from a historical perspective. As media studies is an important part of the social sciences, conceptualising the audiences as a key part of media processes is an essential part of understanding media, including their history. It is through a sociological perspective that we can assess the importance of listeners, viewers and readers for the media development. The main terms used in media studies and media education for audience research are discussed. The concept of the media triangle is described in detail to assess the significance of audiences to media history. The interaction between ‘old’ and ‘new’ media is then described in order to understand historical trajectories. The next section focuses on the analysis of the influence of audiences on the formation of cultural consumption practices of different media such as the press, phonograph, cinema, radio and television broadcasting, and digital media. The key terms used in this article are imagined community, media domestication, implied audience, collective and individual consumption and participatory culture. In the conclusion, paper stresses out the co-existence of the applied concepts in the current media environment as the result of media and communications development since the late 19th century.

Wi-Fi is an integral and invaluable part of our media practices. Wireless networks are blended into our media environment and, in terms of infrastructural importance, have become comparable with electricity or water. This article offers a new transnational perspective on the underexplored history of IEEE 802.11 standards by focusing on the tensions between the United States and Europe in terms of development trajectories of wireless technology. The goal is to analyze the standardization of wireless networking through a transnational lens and to contribute to enhanced understanding of the global proliferation of Wi-Fi technology. Four particular aspects of the transnational development of Wi-Fi technology are discussed: the rivalry between US and European standards, the constitutive choice to focus on data transmission, radio spectrum availability, and the peculiarities of network authentication.