Synopses & Reviews
A pioneering analysis of radio as both a cultural and material production,
Communities of the Air explores radioandrsquo;s powerful role in shaping Anglo-American culture and society since the early twentieth century. Scholars and radio writers, producers, and critics look at the many ways radio generates multiple communities over the airandmdash;from elite to popular, dominant to resistant, canonical to transgressive. The contributors approach radio not only in its own right, but also as a set of practicesandmdash;both technological and socialandmdash;illuminating broader issues such as race relations, gender politics, and the construction of regional and national identities.
Drawing on the perspectives of literary and cultural studies, science studies and feminist theory, radio history, and the new field of radio studies, these essays consider the development of radio as technology: how it was modeled on the telephone, early conflicts between for-profit and public uses of radio, and amateur radio (HAMS), local programming, and low-power radio. Some pieces discuss how radio gives voice to different cultural groups, focusing on the BBC and poetry programming in the West Indies, black radio, the history of alternative radio since the 1970s, and science and contemporary arts programming. Others look at radioandrsquo;s influence on gender (and genderandrsquo;s influence on radio) through examinations of Queen Elizabethandrsquo;s broadcasts, Gracie Allenandrsquo;s comedy, and programming geared toward women. Together the contributors demonstrate how attention to the variety of ways radio is used and understood reveals the dynamic emergence and transformation of communities within the larger society.
Contributors. Laurence A. Breiner, Bruce B. Campbell, Mary Desjardins, Lauren M. E. Goodlad, Nina Hunteman, Leah Lowe, Adrienne Munich, Kathleen Newman, Martin Spinelli, Susan Merrill Squier, Donald Ulin, Mark Williams, Steve Wurzler
Review
andldquo;Communities of the Air covers historical periods, genres, performers, program types, and audiences not previously discussed in this still all too thin area of radio studies.andldquo;andmdash;Susan Jeanne Douglas, author of Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination
Review
andldquo;Turn up the volume! At last, weandrsquo;re tuned in to the right frequency for radio studies. We all listen to radio, we remember our lives through itandmdash;and now we have the tools to understand it too.andldquo;andmdash;Toby Miller, author of Technologies of Truth: Cultural Citizenship and Popular Media
Synopsis
""Communities of the Air "covers historical periods, genres, performers, program types, and audiences not previously discussed in this still all too thin area of radio studies."--Susan Jeanne Douglas, author of "Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination"
Synopsis
Affirms the importance of invention of radio and explores how radio creates sets of overlapping communities of the air, including those who study and theorize radio as a technological, social, cultural, and historical phenomenon.
About the Author
Susan Merrill Squier is Brill Professor of Womenandrsquo;s Studies and English at Pennsylvania State University. She is author of Babies in Bottles: Twentieth-Century Visions of Reproductive Technology and coeditor of Playing Dolly: Technocultural Formations, Fantasies, and Fictions of Assisted Reproduction and Arms and the Woman: War, Gender, and Literary Representation.