Media
The Black Country is home to four radio stations - Free Radio, Gold, 102.5 The 'Bridge and Signal 107. Both Free Radio and Gold (formerly Radio WABC) have broadcast since 1976 from transmitter sites from Turner's Hill in neighbouring Rowley Regis, with the studios being located in Wolverhampton. Free Radio was known as Beacon until late March 2012 when it changed its name along with 3 of its Sister Stations. 102.5 The 'Bridge has broadcast since 2008 and its studios are based in Stourbridge. Signal 107 broadcasts from Mander House to areas of Shropshire & The Black Country.
The Express and Star is one of the region's two daily newspapers, publishing eleven local editions from its Wolverhampton headquarters and its five district offices (for example the Dudley edition is considerably different in content from the Wolverhampton or Stafford editions). It is the biggest selling regional paper in the UK. Incidentally the Express and Star, traditionally a Black Country paper has expanded to the point where they sell copies from vendors in Birmingham city centre.
The Black Country Mail - a local edition of the Birmingham Mail - is the region's other daily newspaper. Its regional base is in Walsall town centre. Established in 1973, from a site in High Street, Cradley Heath, the Black Country Bugle has also contributed to the region's history. It started as a fortnightly publication, but due to its widespread appeal, now appears on a weekly basis.
One independent local publisher, Dudley's Kates Hill Press, has been producing books on the Black Country and its people since 1992. Recently the 'Black Country Alphabet and Black Country Christmas Song' by the Black Country Tee-Shirts company have helped to demonstrate the accent and dialect further across the country.
In September 2009 a group of Black Country film-makers showcased a variety of video poems about the area and its cultural identity (Known collectively as "Black Country Cinema"). The films were exhibited at Wolverhampton's Light House Media Centre. Local film and digital media agency Screen West Midlands referred to the event as “Personal, Instinctual & Organic Video Poetry of everyday life.” The event was a way of embracing the Black Country's distinctive cultural characteristics in the medium of film.
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Famous quotes containing the word media:
“Never before has a generation of parents faced such awesome competition with the mass media for their children’s attention. While parents tout the virtues of premarital virginity, drug-free living, nonviolent resolution of social conflict, or character over physical appearance, their values are daily challenged by television soaps, rock music lyrics, tabloid headlines, and movie scenes extolling the importance of physical appearance and conformity.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)
“The question confronting the Church today is not any longer whether the man in the street can grasp a religious message, but how to employ the communications media so as to let him have the full impact of the Gospel message.”
—Pope John Paul II (b. 1920)
“The media transforms the great silence of things into its opposite. Formerly constituting a secret, the real now talks constantly. News reports, information, statistics, and surveys are everywhere.”
—Michel de Certeau (1925–1986)