Radio and American Culture

Term Paper # 99195

This paper explores the radio's impact upon American popular culture from the 1920s through the 1950s.

2,525 words () | 9 sources | MLA | 2007 United States

Paper Summary:

The paper shows how radio advertising created a demand for certain modes of dress, entertainment and music at the same time as it worked to produce a society more pliant to powerful interest groups. The paper discusses how the radio also served to perpetuate stereotypes that marginalized some groups while elevating others. The paper concludes that American popular culture - even to this very day - owes at least part of its nature to the old-fashioned radio.

From the Paper:

"One of the most significant things that radio did for American popular culture was to make the siren call of that culture more pervasive than ever before. That is to say, before the advent of the radio, people could really only be exposed to the newest fad, fashion or technological product by venturing outdoors, by permitting a door-to-door salesman into the house or by purchasing a subscription to the local newspaper. However, because radio did not require anyone to leave the home in order to be inundated with advertising promos, did not require that someone admit a stranger into their residence or did not even require that someone be able to read the printed word, radio became an extraordinarily effective means of "commodifying" popular culture even more than it already was."

Sample of Sources Used:

"1930s Radio Captivates a Nation". Advertising Age, 76.13 (28 Mar. 2005): 34-36.
Absher, Frank. "The Little Station that Could". St. Louis Journalism Review, 35.272 (2004-05): 12-13.
Cusic, Don. "The Popular Culture Economy". Journal of Popular Culture, 35.3 (2001): 1-11.
Godfried, Nathan. "Struggling over Politics and Culture: Organized Labor and Radio Station WEVD during the 1930s". Labor History, 42.4 (2001): 347-69.
Gottlieb, Martin. "The Durability of Doo-Wop". New York Times, 142.49214 (17 Jan. 1993): 1, 25.