Skip to product information
1 of 1

Oxford University Press, USA

Radio's Civic Ambition: American Broadcasting and Democracy in the 1930s

Radio's Civic Ambition: American Broadcasting and Democracy in the 1930s

Regular price €75,95 EUR
Regular price Sale price €75,95 EUR
Sale Sold out
Shipping calculated at checkout.
Format
Quantity
The history of American radio broadcasting has often been written as a lament for lost possibilities, a tale of what might have been. One now familiar landmark in that account is the story of how American commercial broadcasters, in the passage of the 1934 Communications Act, won a great
victory over reformers who wanted frequencies set aside for non-commercial use. It is generally agreed that the defeat of the radio reformers was decisive and permanent, and that the best hopes for a public radio in the United States had been thwarted by 1934. In Radio's Civic Ambition, however,
author David Goodman focuses not on the lost possibilities and defeated reformers, but on what did happen as the beginning of another chapter in the story of the struggle over the meaning and purpose of American broadcasting. Commercial broadcasters paid a considerable price for their victory: in
the years after 1934, American broadcasters always had to be seen to be providing public service as well as entertainment. An impressive range of programs, from imaginatively conceived classical music broadcasts to lively multi-opinion radio forums, was designed to promote civic engagement and
individualization. By the later 1930s, political leaders, key social science and communications intellectuals, the Federal Communications Commission, and many articulate and educated ordinary Americans, increasingly expected commercial broadcasters in the US to perform a range of ambitious civic
functions, including encouraging local community, strengthening democracy, fostering talent, and producing tolerance for other points of view.

A new look at the history of commercial radio broadcasting in America, Radio's Civic Ambition will appeal to students and scholars in communications and radio studies, music history, media studies, and American history.


Author: David Goodman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 04/12/2011
Pages: 368
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.27lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.40w x 1.20d
ISBN: 9780195394085

Review Citation(s):
Choice 10/01/2011

About the Author

David Goodman teaches American history at the University of Melbourne and is author of Gold Seeking: Victoria and California in the 1850s.

This title is not returnable

View full details