Selling Radio: The Commercialization of American Broadcasting 1920-1934

By Susan Smulyan

And now a word from our sponsor.... When the first radio stations signed on in the 1920s, this phrase was unknown to listeners. Fifteen years later, however, advertising ruled the airwaves. Selling... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1560986867
• ISBN13: 9781560986867
• Release Date: September 1996
• Publisher: Smithsonian Institution Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 0.8" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Classic Work on Early Radio

The previous review posted on this book should be taken with a grain of salt. This is one of the major scholarly works on the formation of American radio practices written in the last 20 years. Informed by the American Studies model of research, Smulyan argues that while radio began as a medium of experimentation, by the late 1920s thanks in multiple part to confusion about how to regulate the medium, RCA's successful political lobby, and considerable corporate investment, radio succumbed to the commercial model of broadcasting. Highly recommended for radio scholars and media historians, but I actually think that this work will also be of great interest to radio buffs. The book pays particular attention radio's influence on America's changing epistemology of spatiality in the early chapters.