
The opening decades of the twentieth century witnessed a profound transformation in the history of modern sound media, with workers in U.S. film, radio, and record industries developing pioneering production methods and performance styles tailored to emerging technologies of electric sound reproduction that would redefine dominant forms and experiences of popular audio entertainment. Focusing on broadcasting's initial expansion during the 1920s, Making Radio explores the forms of creative labor pursued for the medium in the period prior to the better-known network era, assessing their role in shaping radio's identity and identifying affinities with parallel practices pursued for conversion-era film and phonography. Tracing programming forms adopted by early radio writers and programmers, production techniques developed by studio engineers, and performance styles cultivated by on-air talent, it shows how radio workers negotiated a series of broader industrial and cultural pressures to establish best practices for their medium that reshaped popular forms of music, drama, and public oratory and laid the foundation for a new era of electric sound entertainment.
This book investigates how early radio workers in the 1920s established the foundational production methods and performance styles that defined modern sound culture. Shawn VanCour, a scholar of media history, utilizes archival research and industrial analysis to demonstrate how creative labor in the nascent broadcasting industry responded to the technological shift toward electric sound reproduction. The text argues that these early practices were not merely experimental but were deliberate efforts to navigate industrial pressures, ultimately shaping the evolution of music, drama, and public oratory.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Experts in media history identify this work as a rigorous examination of the labor and technological conditions that preceded the dominance of network radio. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose, which provides a detailed look at the professionalization of early sound media.
Page Count:
256
Publication Date:
2018-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190497130
ISBN-13:
9780190497132
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