The innumerable books and articles that have already been published about the Internet are testimony both to its importance as a new medium and to the power of suggestion over the human mind. Distinguishing between the real benefits and the hype is perhaps the most demanding challenge this combination of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) presents us with. We are undoubtedly living through a major media revolution and that inevitably involves the violent collision of conflicting hopes and fears over how it will change our lives. But can we guess where this revolution is taking us? Some reference to the history of previous media technologies should provide some helpful, though not necessarily conclusive, perspectives; helpful because it offers a framework in which to decide what we can do with radio on the Web.

In the history of mass communication, no new medium has yet made an earlier one obsolete, despite the reiterated predictions at the time of each new arrival.

• Photography was supposed to mean the end of painting.

• Film was supposed to mean the end of the novel.

• Radio was supposed to mean the end of newspapers.

• Television was supposed to mean the end of film and radio.

What did happen, of course, was that the new medium changed its predecessor but did not replace it. Or, to put it another way, the older medium always adapted itself to fit into the new mix of competitors redefining itself according to its intrinsic...