Electronic media history is steadily assuming a central role in the study of mass communications, radio, television popular culture, journalism, and the new electronic media platforms. This collection of research essays from the major publications in the electronic media discipline illustrates the growth and development of electronic media research from its earliest appearance to current day. Representing a wide variety of topics and scholarship, the articles included here demonstrate landmark research in the field, and illustrate varied methodological approaches to historiography. This book provides essays from a variety of authors and diverse methodological approaches within electronic media historiography as applied to a spectrum of topics. It illustrates the strong tradition of media history and the evolution of both topics and methods. This "Reader" reflects not just what has been covered, but how coverage has changed in the evolution of research. It illustrates the foundations of the field as well as the continuing need for research.

Media archival collections have grown and represent an increasing acknowledgement of and opportunity within electronic media history. The objects of media history are as broad as the term itself. Today s historians build on existing research just as today s electronic media engineers and scientists reference the historical patents and technology of the past.

Appropriate and apt as a textbook for graduate and undergraduate courses in a wide variety of subjects and disciplines -- Broadcasting; Electronic Media History; Journalism; Mass Communication; Media Studies; Telecommunications; Media History, and others - this distinctive collection demonstrates how electronic media research has evolved and lays the groundwork for future study."

Electronic media history is steadily assuming a central role in the study of mass communications, radio, television popular culture, journalism, and the new electronic media platforms. This collection of research essays from the major publications in the electronic media discipline illustrates the growth and development of electronic media research from its earliest appearance to current day. Representing a wide variety of topics and scholarship, the articles included here demonstrate landmark research in the field, and illustrate varied methodological approaches to historiography. This book provides essays from a variety of authors and diverse methodological approaches within electronic media historiography as applied to a spectrum of topics. It illustrates the strong tradition of media history and the evolution of both topics and methods. This "Reader" reflects not just what has been covered, but how coverage has changed in the evolution of research. It illustrates the foundations of the field as well as the continuing need for research.

Media archival collections have grown and represent an increasing acknowledgement of and opportunity within electronic media history. The objects of media history are as broad as the term itself. Today s historians build on existing research just as today s electronic media engineers and scientists reference the historical patents and technology of the past.

Appropriate and apt as a textbook for graduate and undergraduate courses in a wide variety of subjects and disciplines -- Broadcasting; Electronic Media History; Journalism; Mass Communication; Media Studies; Telecommunications; Media History, and others - this distinctive collection demonstrates how electronic media research has evolved and lays the groundwork for future study."

Original essays exploring important developments in radio and television broadcasting.

The essays included in this collection represent some of the best cultural and historical research on broadcasting in the U. S. today. Each one concentrates on a particular event in broadcast history--beginning with Marconi's introduction of wireless technology in 1899.

Michael Brown examines newspaper reporting in America of Marconi's belief in Martians, stories that effectively rendered Marconi inconsequential to the further development of radio. The widespread installation of radios in automobiles in the 1950s, Matthew Killmeier argues, paralleled the development of television and ubiquitous middle-class suburbia in America. Heather Hundley analyzes depictions of male and female promiscuity as presented in the sitcom "Cheers" at a time concurrent with media coverage of the AIDS crisis. Fritz Messere examines the Federal Radio Act of 1927 and the clash of competing ideas about what role radio should play in American life. Chad Dell recounts the high-brow programming strategy NBC adopted in 1945 to distinguish itself from other networks. And George Plasketes studies the critical reactions to "Cop Rock, " an ill-fated combination of police drama and musical, as an example of society's resistance to genre-mixing or departures from formulaic programming.

The result is a collection that represents some of the most recent and innovative scholarship, cultural and historical, on the intersections of broadcasting and American cultural, political, and economic life.

The Red Scare at the FCC started when James Lawrence Fly led the agency in many important decisions that were inspired by the New Deal. These decisions outraged both the broadcasting industry and politically conservative legislators, causing them to accuse the FCC of Communist sympathies. This book analyzes the political transition taken by the FCC that turned it into an agency that fully participated in the Red Scare of the 1950s.

This book analyzes many significant FCC cases and policies that have never been considered within the context of New Deal policymaking or its impact. This work is the first to look into the impact of the Red Scare on an executive agency. Its combination of new archival and behind-the- scenes information makes this book a great addition to the growing body of research on media history and regulation.

Unlike many of her female contemporaries during the thirties and forties, whose political activities furthered the agendas of male politicians, Frieda B. Hennock pursued her own political goals. Guided by intense personal and public interests, she became the first woman appointed to serve on the Federal Communications Commission, and her tenure there coincided with a period of unprecedented regulatory activity, during which the FCC made several significant decisions regarding the development of television. Simultaneously challenging the FCC's status quo and making a political name for herself with her tireless efforts to develop educational television, Hennock became one of the most significant female political figures of this century.

Utilizing both critical and historical research methodologies, Brinson highlights key events in Hennock's career, including her dissenting position in the color TV hearings and her blindness to the deficiencies of the UHF system. "Personal and Public Interests" serves as a much-needed corrective to the scholarly oversight of Hennock's life and work, which represent the intersection of the histories of both broadcasting and women in the United States. More than mere biography, this insightful work examines the union of history, technology, and personality, creating a vivid portrait of both a woman and her era.