Radio As An Educational Force.

"I have long been convinced that the invention of radio, the talking film, and television is destined to affect the process and scope of education with quite as revolutionary results as followed in the wake of the invention of the printing press." - Glenn Frank. 1935.

Mr. Glenn Frank, the president of the University of Wisconsin, believed that the radio changed the world. It has forcefully affected the world in terms of education and moral culture. He thought that this bonded people, it brought them together because they would be seperate individuals listening to the same thing at the same time. It was also bringing people together during the hard times with the economy. It was extraordinary.

"Radio, the talking film, and television can warm, illumine, and fertilize the routines of education by bringing to them, as spur and supplement, the supreme teaching geniuses of the generation."

All these new technologies had such an affect that they changed and influenced peoples' emotions. It made them feel comfortable, excited, and suspenseful. It also was very educational because the information they heard on the radio or saw on a television, whether it was about the war, the economy, or culture, people were learning.

"Even the most average of Americans is a more critical listener when he is not part of a mass meeting......When the statesman steps up to the microphone, his ideas must stand on their own feet without benefit of the crutch of emotionalized crowd reaction."

It was easier to pay attention in the peoples' homes where few could gather around the radio to listen to what the president or whoever was making a speech. If there were crowds of people on the street or many students in a classroom, it was harder to pay attention with possible discussions at the same time. When the president would deliever speeches, he had the American audience in the palm of his hand because they were all listening in to what he was saying. He has to be simple and clear with his words. If he talks with such long sentences, his audiences' attention span will decrease. Franklin D. Roosevelt really knew what that was about.

Uplifting Radio

Radio is the new media that emerges after the film burst on to the scene. The article "Radio and the Child" by Sidonie Matsner Gruenberg points out the inevitable issue any new platform od media faces. Of course like any new media Radio was subject to the same critism as any other entertainment was. It had to deal with its effect on children but Gruenberg points out how the attitudes towards certain forms of entertainment have changed. The article points out how despite its moral value it was was still of educational value which meant that radio was important and was to be utilized as oppose to being subject to denegration.

Advertising and radio, Hand and Hand

In the article "Should Radio Be Used for Advertising? by Joseph H. Jackson, he talks about what people should expect to see in the near future. His argument is very strong because he sees commerilization of the airwaves ahead of us. The radio is something that everyone listen's to, and it is becoming a mass media outlet. He see's the radio as a resouce for advertising to the masses. He feels that advertising on the radio is going to become so huge that it's going to be the majority of what we hear on the radio. He predicted the future just as it would be, as much as we hear music on the radio, that's exactly as much advertising we hear. It now goes hand and hand, because advertising it what funds radio stations and allow them to keep on air. Without advertising there would be no radio, unless it paid for. The only way for people to listen to the radio without hearing advertising if for them to subscribe to such things as xm radio, and siruses radio, among others. I think this was very smart on businesses behalf, to see the importance of radio advertising because of the large number of people it can across too. But then i also agree with Jackson because he feels, that we shouldn't be forced to listen to advertising that forcing their products on to us. Now a days people listen to the radio every chance they get, from when they wake in the mourning, or from their commute to and from their job. If advertising is being heard in people ears all day long in this way, so their going to give in, and end up buying the product they are hearing advertised every minute.

Radio Regulated

The phrase “history repeats itself” is a given when discussing mass media. Every time a new type of media appears, you get a series of steps that are almost identical to one another and radio is no exception.

1. New media is created


2. A multitude of companies jump on the bandwagon hoping to make millions until no one can make a profit


3. The government intervenes creating some type of regulation of the “new industry” and it models it based on the previous media with some minor changes


4. Only a few companies survive or are able to continue operating granted there are no monopolistic tendencies


5. Politics become a central issue on the expansion and control of the new media
   

“The post office lost its bid to control the telegraph in 1846, Western Union abandoned the telephone in 1879, and AT&T withdrew from broadcasting in 1926.” Starr P. 346

In 1927 the Radio Act prohibited telegraph and telephone companies to be involved in Radio in an effort to stop some large companies from having too much control of different media types. Politics and excessive power have always been a determining factor behind many of these decisions.

“AT&T, as the only company capable of achieving the economies of scale afforded by a network, might have been able to dominate radio—that is, if the government would have allowed the Bell System to extend its monopoly from long-distance telephone services to broadcasting.” Starr P. 337

As it was, AT&T would become one the largest monopolies in the United States only to be broken into sub companies not too long ago. Airwave regulation and control became an issue and were politically motivated just like years before was the case with newspapers.

In the end, there were no clear winners just survivors from all the excitement of the utopian moment so characteristic in these cases until a new type of media comes along.

Final Exam Available on Blackboard

The final exam is available on Blackboard. It is due on Thursday, May 8.