Italian Guest Workers Listening to their Radios at the Volkswagen Plant in Wolfsburg (1962)

Italian guest workers at the VW plant in Wolfsburg are delighted to be able to listen to their music anywhere by means of battery-powered transistor radios. As early as 1961, West German radio stations were recording half-hour programs on a weekly basis for Germany's 120,000 Italian migrants. The four workers epitomize the vision of a dynamic, growth-oriented, technologically advanced, and border-crossing consumer society that included guest workers. Portable radios, like Vespas and Volkswagen cars, became emblems of a society on the move.
Today, real-time video broadcasting on handheld mobile devices enables communication across borders—provided that one has high-speed Internet access.