1st Edition
Routledge Reader on Electronic Media History
Electronic media history is steadily assuming a central role in the study of mass communications, radio, television popular culture, journalism, and the new electronic media platforms. This collection of research essays from the major publications in the electronic media discipline illustrates the growth and development of electronic media research from its earliest appearance to current day. Representing a wide variety of topics and scholarship, the articles included here demonstrate landmark research in the field, and illustrate varied methodological approaches to historiography. This book provides essays from a variety of authors and diverse methodological approaches within electronic media historiography as applied to a spectrum of topics. It illustrates the strong tradition of media history and the evolution of both topics and methods. This "Reader" reflects not just what has been covered, but how coverage has changed in the evolution of research. It illustrates the foundations of the field as well as the continuing need for research.
Media archival collections have grown and represent an increasing acknowledgement of and opportunity within electronic media history. The objects of media history are as broad as the term itself. Today’s historians build on existing research just as today’s electronic media engineers and scientists reference the historical patents and technology of the past.
Appropriate and apt as a textbook for graduate and undergraduate courses in a wide variety of subjects and disciplines -- Broadcasting; Electronic Media History; Journalism; Mass Communication; Media Studies; Telecommunications; Media History, and others - this distinctive collection demonstrates how electronic media research has evolved and lays the groundwork for future study.
Introduction
Part I: The Meaning of History: An Introduction & Traditional Approach
Briggs, Social History and Human Experience
Gomery, "Methods for the Study of History of Broadcasting and Mass
Communication"
Meehan, "Critical Theorizing on Broadcast History"
Baudino and Kittross, "Broadcasting’s Oldest Station: An Examination of Four
Claimants"
Flichy, "New Media History"
Sterling, "Decade of Development: FM Radio in the 1950s"
Part II: Audiences, Identity & Programming
Collins, "Murrow and Friendly’s ‘Small World’: Television Conversation at the
Crossroads"
Schwalbe, "Jacqueline Kennedy and Cold War Propaganda"
Rogers and Clevenger "‘The Selling of the Pentagon’: Was CBS the Fulbright
Propaganda Machine?"
Hilmes, "Invisible Men: ‘Amos ‘n’ Andy’ and the Roots of Broadcast Discourse"
Smulyan, "Radio Advertising to American Women in the 1920s: A Latchkey to
Every Home"
Smulyan, "Live from Waikiki: Colonialism, Race, and Radio in Hawaii, 1934-
1963"
Rodríguez, "Creating an Audience and Remapping a Nation: A Brief History of
U.S. Spanish Language Broadcasting, 1930-1980"
Part III: News, Information & Political Programming
Allen, "Discovering ‘Joe Six Pack’ Content in Television News: The Hidden
History of Audience Research, News Consultants, and the Warner Class
Model"
Jones, "The Making of an Interventionist on the Air: Elmer Davis and CBS News,
1939-1941"
Karnick, "NBC and the Innovation of TV News: 1945-1953"
Culbert, "Television's visual impact on decision-making in the USA, 1968: The
Tet Offensive and Chicago's Convention"
Davies, "The First Radio War: Broadcasting in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-
1939"
Ozmun, "Opportunity Deferred: A 1952 Case Study of a Woman in Network
Television News"
Part IV: Public Broadcasting
Avery, "Exploring the Expanding Domain of Public Telecommunications
Research"
Aufderheide, "Public Television and the Public Sphere"
Brinson, "Frieda Hennock: FCC Activist and the Campaign for Educational
Television, 1948-1951"
Part V: International & National Systems
Donald R. Browne, "The International Newsroom: A Study of Practices at the
Voice of America, BBC and Deutsche Welle"
Cornwall, "Stirring Resistance from Moscow: The German Communists of
Czechoslovakia and Wireless Propaganda in the Sudetenland, 1941-1945"
Given, "Another Kind of Empire: The Voice of Australia, 1931-1939"
Godfrey and Spencer, "Canadian Marconi: CFCF Television from Signal Hill to
the Canadian Television Network"
Guo, "A Chronicle of Private Radio in Shanghai"
Hampton, "Early Hong Kong Television"
Kerr, "African broadcasting pioneers and the origins of radio drama"
Wiley, "Transnation: Globalization and the Reorganization of Chilean Television
in the Early 1990s"
Part VI: Law, Regulation & EthicsHugh G.J. Aitken, "Allocating the spectrum: The origins of radio regulation" Armstrong, "Constructing Television Communities: The FCC, Signals, and Cities,1948-1957"
Stavitsky, "The Changing Conception of Localism in U.S. Public Radio"
Horwitz, "The First Amendment Meets Some New Technologies"
Leslie, "Ethics as Communication Theory: Ed Murrow’s Legacy"
Levine, "Television Journalism on Trial: Westmoreland v. CBS"
Limburg, "The Decline of Broadcast Ethics: U.S. v. NAB"
Part VII: Industry, Business & Economics
Gomery, "The centrality of media economics"
Nielsen, "Television: Chicago Style"
Mullen, "The pre-history of pay cable television: an overview and analysis"
Parsons, "The Evolution of the Cable-Satellite Distribution System"
Newell et al., "The Hidden History of Product Placement"
Part VIII: Technology & Biography
Sivowitch, "A Technological Survey of Broadcasting’s ‘Pre-History,’ 1876-1920"
Slotten, "Radio engineers, the Federal Radio Commission, and the Social Shaping
of Broadcast Technology"
Sterne, "Television Under Construction: American Television and the Problem of
Distribution, 1926-62"
Walker, "Old media on new media: National popular press reaction to mechanical
television"
Index
Biography
Donald G. Godfrey is Professor Emeritus at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State University. He is a Past President of the Broadcast Education Association (BEA); served as President of the National Council of Communication Associations (CCA); as editor of the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media for four years; and is former Curator of the CBS-KIRO Milo Ryan Phonoarchive, a CBS Radio News World War II archive, today at the National Archive, Washington, D.C.
Susan L. Brinson is Professor of Communication at Auburn University. Her research focuses on television history, broadcast regulation, and media representations of identity. She is the author of two books and co-editor of an anthology. She served as editor of the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media for three years.
