Battle of the Waves: Radiophonic Discourses at El Eternauta
Abstract
Among many other things, El Eternauta, the science fiction comic created by H. G. Oesterheld and F. Solano López, is the staging of a case in risk communication. Specifically, it refers to the dissemination of information about the danger facing a group of porteños (inhabitants of Buenos Aires). In the emergency caused by an alien invasion, radio plays an ambivalent role, at times providing information to the survivors, in other occasions leading them right into an ambush. Seen in the light of the media environment of the Fifties and of the widespread ideas about the overwhelming media power, its changing status allows us to detect contradictory perceptions concerning the radiophonic institution in particular and technology in general: on the one hand, we have simple and friendly devices; on the other hand, complex instruments prone to manipulation; in the middle, radio broadcasting. Our findings, besides offering a new reading of El Eternauta, confirm its documentary value for a social history of the media in Argentina.
