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Technology and Culture 43.1 (2002) 196-198



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Book Review

Fireside Politics: Radio and Political Culture in the United States, 1920-1940


Fireside Politics: Radio and Political Culture in the United States, 1920-1940. By Douglas B. Craig. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. Pp. xx+362. $45.

Fireside Politics is a very important contribution to the history of broadcasting. Douglas Craig's main goal was to write a political history of radio broadcasting in the United States before World War II; however, he has also succeeded in producing the best general study yet published on the development of radio broadcasting during this crucial period when key institutional and social patterns were established. The research is impressive. Primary sources Craig utilizes include not only published government documents, newspapers, magazines, and pamphlets but also unpublished papers of government officials and industry executives largely unused by historians, including the National Broadcasting Company Records at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. [End Page 196]

Craig divides his study into three sections. The first provides an excellent overview of key institutional and political developments during the 1920s and 1930s that led to the establishment of a dominant network structure supported by advertising revenue. The book includes useful graphs, maps, and tables analyzing such statistics as the rate of increase of radio receiver ownership and station licensing in different regions of the country. Craig goes further than other historians in emphasizing the influence of the concept of "radio exceptionalism." Government and industry officials believed that radio broadcasting should not be treated like newspapers or other communications media. They argued that radio had a larger and more diverse audience and a greater potential to influence public opinion, and that the limited number of frequencies available meant that limits would have to be placed on broadcast licenses. Government regulation seemed necessary to ensure that radio broadcasting served the public interest. Officials viewed radio as a powerful means for creating an educated, informed citizenry essential for the health of the republic. But the tendency to view broadcasting as primarily a profit-making business providing mass entertainment always threatened to undermine educational goals. To illuminate policy choices available during the formative period of radio in the United States, Craig provides a valuable comparative discussion of developments in other countries.

The second section analyzes the use of radio by politicians and political parties during the 1920s and 1930s. Craig points out that before the 1927 Radio Act, broadcasters did not have clear legal guidance about political broadcasting. The 1927 law directed broadcasters to give equal time to all candidates, but Congress did not require stations to accept political advertising. This tended to favor wealthy candidates and the two major parties. In this section, Craig includes a discussion of rates charged for political advertisements, techniques developed by programmers, the politicians who were allowed to have access to radio, and network policy toward broadcasts by elected officials. Although enthusiasts predicted that radio would help create an enlightened electorate, commercial broadcasters were primarily interested in avoiding controversy and providing light entertainment. Craig points out, however, that of the major democracies during this period the United States was the only one "in which radio listeners could hear, albeit occasionally, an election speech by a Communist" (p. 184).

The third section ventures beyond public policy and elections to analyze radio broadcasting with respect to identity politics. The themes of radio exceptionalism and technological utopianism supported a view that the latest technological advance would function as a unifying force in American society, helping to correct dislocations and discontinuities caused by industrial developments. Craig emphasizes that in reality many groups not part of the dominant culture--for example, labor activists and African-Americans--were shut out of radio. [End Page 197]

Despite Craig's extensive research, there are gaps worth noting. The book mainly analyzes network programming and policy rather than local activities by regional stations. Further, the book would have been stronger with a more nuanced and extensive conclusion. Although Craig states in chapter 13 that network-produced entertainment programming did...

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