Selling Radio: The Commercialization of American Broadcasting, 1920–1934. By Susan Smulyan

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 715 no longer afford the leisure of perusing exchanged newspapers as a primary method of news gathering; the technology of the telegraph instilled a new culture of immediacy among editors and their readers. A second major factor in news commodification stemmed from the “race” among news brokers to deliver news from Europe. Here Blondheim paints a vivid picture of innovative news brokers such as Daniel Craig, the competition among telegraphers to build systems along the northeast coast of North America, the interception of ships at sea to procure news from Europe, and finally in 1858, the success­ ful bridging of the old and new worlds by Cyrus Field and his first, albeit short-lived, transatlantic cable. But wait—did that cable ever in fact operate? Blondheim presents persuasive evidence that the fa­ mous “three-week life” of this pre—Civil War transatlantic connection was, most likely, an elaborate deception designed to strengthen the Associated Press, please clients, sell stock, and satisfy clauses in a number of long-term exclusive telegraph contracts and concessions. Not surprisingly, the latter half of the 19th century saw the tele­ graph industry become fully enmeshed in capitalism and politics. Businessmen and financiers learned that a superior knowledge of the uses of the telegraph could mean superior results in stock markets and corporate growth. Politicians and editors learned how the tele­ graph could shape and mold political opinion. In two sensational examples, Blondheim analyzes the flow of telegraphic information regarding the 1876 and 1884 presidential campaigns, concluding that a group of editors and politicians successfully conveyed election re­ porting to give their favorite candidate, Rutherford Hayes, the op­ portunity to contest the results of the popular balloting to his ultimate advantage; a similar attempt to support James Blaine in 1884 did not succeed. Thanks to this book, political historians must now recognize that the telegraph is the crucible of 20th-century media politics. To sum up, News over the Wires is a terrific book. My own teaching and research will be the better for it, and I wholeheartedly recom­ mend it for all libraries. James Schwoch Dr. Schwoch is an associate professor at Northwestern University. His books include The American Radio Industry andIts Latin American Activities, 1900—1939 (1990) and Media Knowledge (1992). Selling Radio: The Commercialization of American Broadcasting, 1920— 1934. By Susan Smulyan. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institu­ tion Press, 1994. Pp. viii + 223; illustrations, notes, index. $24.95. Broadcasting has played a major role in the American economy since the 1920s, yet surprisingly few works explore the origins of broadcasting within the context of business enterprise and technolog­ ical change. Susan Smulyan’s new study of radio from 1920 to 1934 716 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE is thus a welcome addition to the historical literature. Challenging notions of technological determinism, Smulyan argues that there was nothing natural or preordained about the commercialized form that broadcasting assumed. Entrepreneurs with vested interests in a pri­ vately owned broadcasting system waged a sustained battle to “sell” radio in ways that promoted the accumulation of capital on a grand scale. This book, then, is more than a story of early radio personalities and programs; it is also a tale of competing technologies, organiza­ tions, and ideological convictions. Smulyan concludes that Americans paid a heavy price for their broadcasting system. The public interest might have best been served by a mixed system of privately and pub­ licly owned broadcasting stations. Readers interested in the relationship between technology and soci­ ety will find this book of considerable value, for it explains how vari­ ous social, cultural, and political factors influence technological choices and the structure of business enterprise. It shows that public distrust of monopoly, for example, fostered the rise of a national, wired-network system that accommodated the needs of small, inde­ pendently owned stations as well as large corporations. It also shows that broadcasters and advertising agencies tapped deeply imbedded ideals in American history to get audiences to accept radio advertising and that federal regulatory policy shaped radio in ways that margin­ alized nonprofit stations and educational programs. The relationship between technology and culture comes into sharp­ est focus in a...