Ideology, politics and music: Study of the music policy and -programming of the Flemish broadcasting associations and the N.I.R. and its contribution to the construction of a Flemish cultural identity, 1929-1939.

This research deals with the contribution of Flemish public broadcasters to the construction of a Flemish cultural identity, by means of radio's music policy and -programming.

The first Flemish, Dutch-speaking radio association in Belgium started broadcasting six years after the first French-speaking broadcaster, in a Flanders still deprived of Dutch-speaking higher education or adequate language laws, with a culture still suffering from an inferior treatment in comparison to French culture. The opportunities Flemish radio offered for the upcoming cultural emancipation of Flanders can be considered evident, especially when one looks at the vast literature on the influence of public media on the dissemination of cultural and national discourses or on the construction of (national) identities.

Against this background, supported by the existing literature on cultural nationalism, a narrative analysis of weekly radio magazines has been conducted to highlight the mutual influences of Flemish cultural nationalism (Flamingantism) and the cultural policy, more specifically the music policy, of two Flemish-minded broadcasters associated with the Belgian National Institute for Radio-broadcasting (N.I.R.): the Catholic Flemish broadcasting association (K.V.R.O.) and the Flemish-nationalist radio (Vlanara).