1st Edition

Radio Reader Essays in the Cultural History of Radio

Edited By Michele Hilmes, Jason Loviglio Copyright 2002
    586 Pages 25 Color Illustrations
    by Routledge

    While cultural historians and media scholars have been looking at television for decades, they have only recently turned their eyes (and ears) to radio. Studies of television rarely acknowledge that many of its forms-soap operas, situation comedies, quiz shows, sportscasts, etc.-all evolved out of the earlier medium. The essays collected here demonstrate that radio set patterns that have effected all forms of media that have followed it, and also look at how it has survived the coming of media that supposedly made it obsolete.

    Acknowledgments,Introduction Michele Hilmes and Jason Loviglio,Rethinking Radio Michele Hilmes,Radio in the Great Depression: Promotional Culture, Public Service, and Propaganda Kate Lacey ,Critical Reception: Public Intellectuals Decry Depression-era Radio, Mass Culture, and Modern America Bruce Lenthall,Your Voice Came In Last Night... But I Thought It Sounded a Little Scared: Rural Radio Listening and Talking Back During the Progressive Era in Wisconsin, 1920-1932 Derek Vaillant,Vox Pop: Network Radio and the Voice of the People Jason Loviglio,Man of the Hour: Walter A. Maier and Religion by Radio on the Lutheran Hour Tona Hangen,The Tendency to Deprave and Corrupt Morals: Regulation and Irregular Sexuality in Golden Age Radio Comedy Matthew Murray,Poisons, Potions, and Profits: Radio Rebels and the Origins of the Consumer Movement Kathleen Newman,Scary Women and Scarred Men: Suspense, Gender Trouble, and Postwar Change, 1942-1950 Allison McCracken,Radio's Cultural Front, 1938-1948 Judith E. Smith,Radio and the Political Discourse of Racial Equality Barbara Savage,A Dark(ened) Figure on the Airwaves: Race, Nation, and The Green Hornet Alexander Russo,Expatriate American Radio Propagandists in the Employ of the Axis Powers William F. O'Connor,Now It Can Be Told: The Influence of the United States Occupation on Japanese Radio Susan Smulyan,Before the Scandals: The Radio Precedents of the Quiz Show Genre Jason Mittell,The Case of the Radio-Active Housewife: Relocating Radio in the Age of Television Jennifer Hyland Wang,Radio Redefines Itself, 1947-1962 Eric Rothenbuhler and Tom McCourt,Turn On. . . Tune In: The Rise and Demise of Commercial Underground Radio Michael C. Keith,Lead Us Not Into Temptation: American Public Radio in a World of Infinite Possibilities Jack Mitchell,Radio By and For the Public: The Death and Resurrection of Low-Power Radio Paul Riismandel,Technostruggles: Black Liberation Radio John Fiske,Scanning the Stations of the Cross: Christian Right Radio in Post-Fordist Society Paul Apostolidis,Letting Boys be Boys: Talk Radio, Male Hysteria, and Political Discourse in the 1980s Susan J. Douglas,Radio's Digital Future: Preserving the Public Interest in the Age of New Media Michael P. McCauley,Notes on Contributors,Index

    Biography

    Michele Hilmes is Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of Hollywood in the Age of Television: From Radio to Cable and Radio Voices: American Broadcasting 1922-1952. Jason Loviglio is Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

    "The contributors to this volume persuasively argue that the radio has been at the center of the American imaginative and political life in the twentieth century.an important and entertaining book by two leading scholars." -- Lary May, author of The Big Tomorrow, Hollywood and the Politics of the American Way
    "From music to mysteries, call-ins to comedy, advertising to advocacy, and religion to racial uplift, it's all here in Radio Reader." -- George Lipsitz, author of Time Passages
    "Radio had been ubiquitous in American life since the late 1920s. With this seminal book, we may now begin to understand what this has meant to our civilization. Bravo!" -- J. Fred MacDonald, Professor Emeritus, Northeastern Illinois University
    "Long marginalized in American media historiography, radio finally receives fitting scholarly treatment. Radio Reader should be required reading for any serious student of media history." -- Robert C. Allen, Professor of History, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
    "Radio Reader re-invents the radio as an object of study by letting us hear disembodied and contradictory voices from the past. An indispensable collection!" -- Janet Staiger, William P. Hobby Centennial Professor of Communication, University of Texas at Austin.
    "Long marginalized in American media historiography, radio finally receives fitting scholarly treatment. Radio Reader should be required reading for any serious student of media history." -- Robert C. Allen, Professor of History, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
    "Radio Reader re-invents the radio as an object of study by letting us hear disembodied and contradictory voices from the past. An indispensable collection!" -- Janet Staiger, William P. Hobby Centennial Professor of Communication, University of Texas at Austin.
    "Radio Reader is a powerful report on the powerful history of a powerful medium. It weaves tales of everyday life with stories about the transformation radio has gone through. It is captivatingly told, and ;eaves the reader not only with a wistful longing for the early period of radio, but also a wish to do research on the subject oneself. That is how strong this book is." -- Oystein Hide, University of Southampton,Techné
    "The Radio Reader offers a broad, interdisciplinary perspective on radio broadcasting in the 20th century." -- Elizabeth Hayes, University of Iowa, Journal of Communication