Radio

     In the 1920s, government intervention prevented radio from being absorbed by corporations invested in other communication media, thus allowing room for complete contingency as it developed into its unique format of musical programming supported by advertising.
     All governments have the power to control and manipulate the circumstances of emerging markets. Excessive control is a form of determinism, which fails to accommodate social attitudes and desires, which prevents the realization of that market's potential. By allowing laissez faire economics occur, complete contingency theoretically should be achieved. However, in the age of corporations, emerging markets are often swallowed by existing conglomerates, which attempt to transplant the format of their prepossessed markets, in spite of the natural course of development.
     This latter would have been the case if AT&T had been allowed to continue it's early dominance of the radio industry. Having created the first radio network, AT&T was on its way to controlling the industry, when pressure from the government forced it to choose between telephone and radio, and thereby derailing its cross-industry plans. Being free from the influence of a company involved in telephone, the new media did not become a two-way system for social communication; instead, it continued in the direction it was heading towards mass broadcasting, which bound the nation together in an essential time for its survival.