In an innovative cultural history of Argentine movies and radio in the decades before Peronism, Matthew B. Karush demonstrates that competition with jazz and Hollywood cinema shaped Argentina's domestic cultural production in crucial ways, as Argentine producers tried to elevate their offerings to appeal to consumers seduced by North American modernity. At the same time, the transnational marketplace encouraged these producers to compete by marketing "authentic" Argentine culture. Domestic filmmakers, radio and recording entrepreneurs, lyricists, musicians, actors, and screenwriters borrowed heavily from a rich tradition of popular melodrama. Although the resulting mass culture trafficked in conformism and consumerist titillation, it also disseminated versions of national identity that celebrated the virtue and dignity of the poor, while denigrating the wealthy as greedy and mean-spirited. This anti-elitism has been overlooked by historians, who have depicted radio and cinema as instruments of social cohesion and middle-class formation. Analyzing tango and folk songs, film comedies and dramas, radio soap operas, and other genres, Karush argues that the Argentine culture industries generated polarizing images and narratives that provided much of the discursive raw material from which Juan and Eva Peron built their mass movement.

Forty million Americans indulged in a national obsession in 1930: they eagerly tuned in Amos 'n' Andy, the nightly radio comedy in which a pair of white actors portrayed the adventures of two black men making a new life in the big city. Meanwhile, some angry African Americans demanded that Amos 'n' Andy be banned, even as others gathered in the barbershops and radio stores of Harlem to chuckle over the adventures of Amos, Andy, and the Kingfish.

Melvin Patrick Ely unveils a fascinating tale of America's shifting color line, in which two professional directors of blackface minstrel shows manage to produce a series so rich and complex that it wins admirers ranging from ultra-racists to outspoken racial egalitarians. Eventually, the pair stir further controversy when they bring their show to television.

In a preface written especially for this new edition of his acclaimed classic, Ely shows how white and black responses to his Adventures of Amos 'n' Andy since 1991 tell a revealing story of their own about racial hopes and fears at the turn of the twenty-first century.

It reaches millions of people every minute of the day, it costs us virtually nothing and yet we take it entirely for granted. Superseded by television as the primary source of entertainment and information, radio still has a unique place in the mass media spectrum. While the textual properties and reception of film and television have received considerable critical attention, until now radio has only really been considered in terms of its history and its modes of production. 'On Air' adopts a wide-ranging theoretical and critical approach. It provides an in-depth examination of radio's codes (speech, music, noise and silence),and the conventions of using these codes and the dominant modes of reception. The text offers a vocabulary and methodology for analysing radio programmes, drawing on work by both media theorists and professional broadcasters in Britain, Australia, and North America. Written by an academic and a practitioner, 'On Air' provides a critical overview of radio for media students, as well as suggestions for practical activities, a time-line of major events in the history of radio, and a glossary of key terms.

Fleeing the Nazis, Theodor W. Adorno lived in New York City as a refugee from 1938 until 1941. During these years, he was intensively involved in a study of how the recently developed techniques for the nation-wide transmission of music over radio were transforming the perception of music itself. This broad ranging radio research was conceived as nothing less than an investigation, partly empirical, of Walter Benjamins speculative claims for the emancipatory potential of art in the age of its mechanical reproduction. The results of Adornos project set him decisively at odds with Benjamins theses and at the same time became the body of thinking that formed the basis for Adornos own aesthetics in his Philosophy of New Music.
Current of Music is the title that Adorno himself gave to this research project. For complex reasons, however, Adorno was not able to bring the several thousands of pages of this massive study, most of it written in English, to a final form prior to leaving New York for California, where he would immediately begin work with Max Horkheimer on the Dialectic of Enlightenment. Robert Hullot-Kentor, the distinguished Adorno scholar, reconstructed Adornos project for the Adorno Archive in Germany and provides a lengthy and informative introduction to the fragmentary texts collected in this volume.
Current of Music will be widely discussed for the light it throws on the development of Adornos own thought, on his complex relationship with Walter Benjamin, but most of all for the important perspectives it provides on questions of popular culture, the music of industrial entertainment, the history of radio and the social dimensions of the reproduction of art.

This new revised and expanded edition of Reality Radio celebrates today's best audio documentary work by bringing together some of the most influential and innovative practitioners from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. With a new foreword and five new essays, this book takes stock of the transformations in radio documentary since the publication of the first edition: the ascendance of the podcast; greater cultural, racial, and topical variety; and the changing economics of radio itself. In twenty-four essays total, documentary artists tell--and demonstrate, through stories and transcripts--how they make radio the way they do, and why. Whether the contributors to the volume call themselves journalists, storytellers, or even audio artists--and although their essays are just as diverse in content and approach--all use sound to tell true stories, artfully. Contributors include Jad Abumrad, Daniel Alarcon, Jay Allison, damali ayo, John Biewen, Emily Botein, Chris Brookes, Scott Carrier, Katie Davis, Sherre DeLys, Ira Glass, Alan Hall, Dave Isay, Natalie Kestecher, Starlee Kine, The Kitchen Sisters, Sarah Koenig and Julie Snyder, Maria Martin, Karen Michel, Joe Richman, Dmae Roberts, Stephen Smith, Alix Spiegel, Sandy Tolan, and Glynn Washington.

Acoustic signals, voice, sound, articulation, music and spatial networking are dispositifs of radiophonic transmission which have brought forth a great number of artistic practices. Up to and into the digital present radio has been and is employed and explored as an apparatus-based structure as well as an expanded model for performance and perception. This volume investigates a broad range of aesthetic experiments with the broadcasting technology of radio, and the use of radio as a means of disseminating artistic concepts. With exemplary case studies, its contributions link conceptual, recipient-response-related, and sociocultural issues to matters of relevance to radio art's mediation.

Using film theory and current criticism, White traces the figure of woman in the work of Max Ophuls.

We got ourselves into this. Here's how we can get ourselves out. We know the problem: the amount of biodiversity loss, the scale of waste and pollution, the amount of greenhouse gas we pump into the air... it's unsustainable. We have to do something. And we are resourceful, adaptable and smart. We have already devised many ways to reduce climate change - some now proven, others encouraging and craving uptake. Each one is a solution to get behind. In 39 Ways to Save the Planet, Tom Heap reveals some of the real-world solutions to climate change that are happening around the world, right now. From tiny rice seeds and fossil fuel free steel to grazing elk and carbon-capturing seagrass meadows, each chapter reveals the energy and optimism in those tackling the fundamental problem of our age. Accompanying a major BBC Radio 4 series in collaboration with the Royal Geographical Society, 39 Ways to Save the Planet is a fascinating exploration of our attempt to build a better future, one solution at a time. A roadmap to global action on climate change, it will encourage you to add your own solutions to the list.

For more than sixty years, Bob Steele was the radio voice of Southern New England, entertaining listeners of WTIC AM with his wit, humor, and an inimitable style that kept listeners faithfully tuning in to his morning show. Capturing the nation's highest market share, the National Radio Hall of Fame inductee maintained an unparalleled popularity through the latter half of the twentieth century. This first ever biography of Bob Steele details both the home life and the award-winning broadcasting career of this Connecticut media legend, from his humble Midwestern roots to the pinnacle of radio fame. Steele and his "The Word for the Day" feature remain forever embedded in the memories of his many listeners.

The long-awaited autobiography of entertainment icon Jerry Blavat, You Only Rock Once is the wildly entertaining and unfiltered story of the man whose career began at the age of 13 on the TV dance show Bandstand and became a music legend. Lifelong friendships with the likes of Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra, a controversial relationship with Philadelphia Mafia boss Angelo Bruno that resulted in a decade-long FBI investigation, and much more colours this amazing journey from the early 60s through today. Now, some 50 years after his first radio gig, Blavat puts it all in perspective in this uniquely American tale of a little cockroach kid" borne out of the immigrant experience who lived the American Dream.

"A very solid and comprehensive collection of essays that allows readers to witness more concretely the variety of forms that the dialogue between literature and the radio has taken in the last century. An outstanding book."--Jean-Michel Rabate, author of "Jacques Lacan and Literature" "This book is a real gift: its variety of essays in different voices provides an opportunity to get up to speed with the sometimes suprising ways that radio helped to structure modernism, served as a foil for modernist writers and artists, and forced the modernists into a more constructive engagement with issues of elite and popular culture. A lively collection."--Kevin J.H. Dettmar, author of "Is Rock Dead?" It has long been accepted that film helped shape the modernist novel and that modernist poetry would be inconceivable without the typewriter. Yet radio, a key influence on modernist literature, remains the invisible medium. The contributors to "Broadcasting Modernism" argue that radio led to changes in textual and generic forms. Modernist authors embraced the emerging medium, creating texts that were to be heard but not read, incorporating the device into their stories, and using it to publicize their work. They saw in radio the same spirit of experimentation that animated modernism itself. Because early broadcasts were rarely recorded, radio's influence on literary modernism often seems equally ephemeral in the historical record. "Broadcasting Modernism" helps fill this void, providing a new perspective for modernist studies even as it reconfigures the landscape of the era itself. Debra Rae Cohen is assistant professor of English at the University of South Carolina Michael Coyle is professor of English at Colgate University. Jane Lewty has published on radio and the work of Joyce, Woolf, and Pound.

Four of the funniest recent episodes from the much-loved BBC Radio 4 panel game chaired by Nicholas Parsons Among the talented and humorous players in this sparkling quartet are Paul Merton, Gyles Brandreth, Jo Caulfield, Julian Clary, Stephen Fry, Jan Ravens, Rebecca Front, Marcus Brigstocke, Sheila Hancock, Fern Britton and Graham Norton. Did Nicholas know Boudicca? What dish was to be served after the Royal Wedding? When did Gyles meet Fanny Cradock, and is he really getting married in the morning? What does Sheila know of George Orwell, and what are her views on ripped jeans? Should Paul be challenged for being out of tune? Answers to these and many more tantalising questions can be answered, without hesitation, deviation or repetition, after listening to this quartet of instalments! Duration: 2 hours approx.

This collection examines the work of Norman Corwin - one of the most important, yet understudied, media authors of all time - as a critical lens to view the history of multimedia authorship and sound production. Known as the "poet laureate" of radio, Corwin is most famous for his radio dramas, which reached millions of listeners around the world and contributed to radio's success as a mass media form in the 1930s and 1940s. But Corwin was also a pioneer in other fields, including cinema, theater, TV, and journalism. In each of these areas, he had a distinctive approach to "soundwork," relying on inventive prerecorded and live-in-real-time atmospheric effects in the studio, among other aesthetic techniques. Exploring the range of Corwin's work-from his World War II-era poetry and his special projects for the United Nations to his path-breaking writing for film and television - and its influence on media today, these essays underscore the political and social impact of Corwin's oeuvre and cement his reputation as a key writer in the history of many sound media.

For four decades, Ideas has presented more than 400,000 CBC Radio listeners in Canada and the United States with the most challenging contemporary thought of the day. Now, to mark the program's 40th anniversary, executive producer Bernie Lucht has selected the most striking interviews and lectures for Ideas: Brilliant Thinkers Speak Their Minds. Featuring some the best thinkers from North America and around the world that have appeared on the program since its beginnings in 1965, Ideas: Brilliant Thinkers Speak Their Minds touches upon societal values, how we govern ourselves, and navigating in the international community. In this remarkable book, Bernie Lucht, winner of the John Drainie Award for broadcast journalism, introduces readers to the origins of the ground-breaking program and to "the best ideas you'll hear tonight." Since the beginning, geopolitics has been one of the significant concerns of the program, and issues such as democracy, dictatorships, the nature of the nation-state, the public good, ideology, religion, peace and violence keep returning to the fore. Although many of the topics have been around for decades, the questions remain startlingly topical today, even in a radically changed world. Exploring geopolitics writ large, Ideas features interviews, lectures and radio documentaries with such influential contemporary thinkers as Tariq Ali, Michael Bliss, Noam Chomsky, Ursula Franklin, Northrop Frye, Bernard Lewis, Margaret MacMillan, James Orbinski, and many, many others. While each thinker speaks from his or her specific experience in time, the themes and concerns resonate as much today as they did last week or forty years ago.

This study examines the culture of Yiddish radio in the United States during radio's golden age. Ari Y. Kelman explores the dynamic relationships between an immigrant population and a mass medium and between audience and community. By focusing on voices previously excluded from radio histories, this treatment of non-English-language radio breaks new ground in the study of both American mass media and immigrant culture. Yiddish radio directly addressed the everyday lives of Jewish immigrants, while providing them with invaluable guidance as they struggled to become American. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, radio created a virtual place where Jewish immigrants could listen to voices like theirs and affirm the sound of their community as it evolved, particularly in light of World War II and the years that followed.

Rob Brydon tells story of his slow ascent to fame and fortune in Small Man in a Book. A multi-award-winning actor, writer, comedian and presenter known for his warmth, humour and inspired impressions, Rob Brydon has quickly become one of our very favourite entertainers. But there was a time when it looked like all we'd hear of Rob was his gifted voice. Growing up in South Wales, Rob had a passion for radio and soon the Welsh airwaves resounded to his hearty burr. However, these were followed by years of misadventure and struggle, before, in the TV series Marion and Geoff and Gavin and Stacey, Rob at last tickled the nation's funny bone. The rest, as they say, is history. Or in his case autobiography. Small Man in a Book is Rob Brydon's funny, heartfelt, honest, sometimes sad, but mainly funny, memoir of how a young man from Wales very, very slowly became an overnight success. Rob Brydon was brought up in Wales, where his career began on radio and as a voiceover artist. After a brief stint working for the Home Shopping Network he co-wrote and performed in his breakthrough show, the darkly funny Human Remains. He has since starred in the immensely popular Gavin and Stacey, Steve Coogan's partner in The Trip, and was the host of Would I Lie to You? and The Rob Brydon Show. He now lives in London with his wife and five children.

Rebecca Front presents this two-part look back at Victoria Wood's stand-up and songs using her own archives and tapes - including never-before-heard material Victoria Wood was a comedian, actress and all-round national treasure. She wrote and starred in countless sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over four decades, winning numerous awards, and her work remains timeless to this day. With her perceptive observational humour, she made the everyday and mundane hilarious - but how did she do it? In this BBC Radio 4 documentary, Rebecca Front uses Victoria Wood's personal rehearsal recordings, rare live performances and behind-the-scenes footage to reveal some of her comedy tricks and techniques. We hear about her instinctive sense of rhythm, amazing rhyming ability and unerring knack for finding the perfect word to make a sentence sing, and learn how she honed her unique talent to become one of Britain's favourite funny women. With unprecedented access to Victoria's own boxes of battered cassette tapes, this programme is a shameless chance to hear some wonderful stand-up comedy, characters and songs, mixed with a look back at what made her so funny and so universally loved. Executive Producer: Geoff Posner Produced by David Tyler A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.

This unique anthology assembles primary documents chronicling the development of the phonograph, film sound, and the radio. These three sound technologies shaped Americans' relation to music from the late nineteenth century until the end of the Second World War, by which time the technologies were thoroughly integrated into everyday life. There are more than 120 selections between the collection's first piece, an article on the phonograph written by Thomas Edison in 1878, and its last, a column advising listeners "desirous of gaining more from music as presented by the radio." Among the selections are articles from popular and trade publications, advertisements, fan letters, corporate records, fiction, and sheet music. Taken together, the selections capture how the new sound technologies were shaped by developments such as urbanization, the increasing value placed on leisure time, and the rise of the advertising industry. Most importantly, they depict the ways that the new sound technologies were received by real people in particular places and moments in time.

A fascinating tour of baseball's greatest moments and iconic stadiums, told through the reminiscences of 50 play-by-play broadcasters. With careers spanning two to three times that of an average player, baseball's best broadcasters have no shortage of history to offer. They have witnessed opening days, no hitters, slugfests, and perfect games, all from arguably the best seats in the house. Broadcasters know their clubs, their stadiums, and their teams in a way that no one else can. In The Voices of Baseball: The Game's Greatest Broadcasters Reflect on America's Pastime, Updated Edition, Kirk McKnight provides an in-depth look at each of Major League Baseball's thirty ballparks from the perspectives of the game's longest-tenured storytellers. Fifty broadcasters reflect on their most iconic calls, fondest memories, what makes their ballparks unique, and more. This updated edition includes 14 additional broadcasters, two new stadiums, the latest World Series calls from the booth, and a special tribute to the recently-departed Vin Scully. With decades of broadcasting between them, their stories encapsulate some of Major League Baseball's biggest moments. Generations of baseball fans will all enjoy the historic and triumphant memories shared by some of the game's greatest broadcasters in The Voices of Baseball.

The early years of television relied in part on already successful narratives of another medium, as studios adapted radio programs like Boston Blackie and Defense Attorney to the small screen. Many shows were adapted more than once, like the radio program Blondie, which inspired six television adaptations and 28 theatrical films. These are but a very few of the 1164 programs covered in this volume. Each program entry contains a detailed story line, years of broadcast, performer and character casts and principal production credits where possible. Two appendices ("Almost a Transition" and "Television to Radio") and a performer's index conclude the book. This first-of-its-kind encyclopedia covers many little-known programs that have rarely been discussed in print (e.g., Real George, based on Me and Janie; Volume One, based on Quiet, Please; and Galaxy, based on X Minus One). Covered programs include The Great Gildersleeve, Howdy Doody, My Friend Irma, My Little Margie, Space Patrol and Vic and Sade.

THE OFFICIAL DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF BBC SPORTS REPORT 'Opens the doors to one of the great radio institutions.' - Dan Walker 'An absolute joy to read.' - John Inverdale 'That opening tune always quickens the pulse.' - Henry Winter Sports Report is as much a 75-year history of sport as a BBC radio institution and Pat Murphy pays handsome tribute to a programme that is still followed affectionately by millions. For nearly 75 years, one BBC programme has been a constant factor in chronicling the way sport is covered, in all its many facets. It has been a window on the sporting world all over the globe - packed tightly into every Saturday evening for the bulk of the year. First broadcast in 1948, Sports Report is the longest-running radio sporting programme in the world and one of the BBC's hardy perennials. Pat Murphy has been a reporter on the programme since 1981 and here he sifts comprehensively through the experiences of his contemporaries and those who made their mark on Sports Report in earlier decades. He hears from commentators, reporters, producers, presenters and the production teams who regularly achieved the broadcasting miracle of getting a live programme on air, without a script, adapting as the hour of news, reaction and comment unfolded. Drawing on unique access from the BBC Archives Unit, he highlights memorable moments from Sports Report, details the challenges faced in getting live interviews on air from draughty, noisy dressing-room areas and celebrates the feat of just a small production team in the studio who, somehow, get the show up and running every Saturday, with the clock ticking implacably on. --- Waterstones Best Books of 2022 - Sport

Cold War Radio is a fascinating look at how the United States waged the Cold War through the international broadcasting of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). Mark G. Pomar served in senior positions at VOA and RFE/RL from 1982 to 1993, during which time the Reagan and Bush administrations made VOA and RFE/RL an important part of their foreign policy. VOA is America's "national voice," broadcasting in more than forty languages, and is charged with explaining U.S. government policies and telling America's story with the aim of gaining the respect and goodwill of its target audience. During the Cold War, the VOA Russian Service broadcast twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. RFE/RL is a private corporation, funded until 1971 by the CIA and afterward through open congressional appropriations. It broadcast in more than twenty languages of Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia and functioned as a "home service" located abroad. Its Russian Service broadcast news, feature programming, and op-eds that would have been part of daily political discourse if Russia had free media. Pomar takes readers inside the two radio stations to show how the broadcasts were conceived and developed and the impact they had on the development of international broadcasting, U.S.-Soviet relations, Russian political and cultural history, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Pomar provides nuanced analysis of the broadcasts and sheds light on the multifaceted role the radios played during the Cold War, ranging from instruments of U.S. Cold War policy to repositories of independent Russian culture, literature, philosophy, religion, and the arts. Cold War Radio breaks new ground as Pomar integrates his analysis of Cold War radio programming with the long-term aims of U.S. foreign policy, illuminating the role of radio in the peaceful end of the Cold War.