Television in the Age of Radio: Modernity, Imagination, and the Making of a MediumPhilip W.Sewell. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2014.

Abstract

Television in the Age of Radio: Modernity, Imagination, and the Making of a Medium Philip W. Sewell. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2014.In the first half of the twentieth century, American television was stuck in limbo. It was in the minds and conversations of much of the nation but not in its living rooms. In 1935, television made its first appearance in Germany as part of the Nazi propaganda machine. In 1936, BBC television introduced highbrow entertainment to Great Britain. But it would take another dozen years before NBC and CBS inaugurated the first network broadcasts in America. Why did the United States lag so far behind? Part of the reason is the daunting technological challenge of broadcasting in a country whose borders are separated by thousands rather than hundreds of miles. And of course the Second World War diverted attention elsewhere. But America didn't enter the war until the end of 1941.According to Philip W. Sewell, the main reason for the delay is cultural. When ruled the airwaves, the nation was debating what the new medium ought to do and how it ought to do it. His book is not the standard chronology of technological advancements. Instead it offers up a cultural history of how America imagined television might be, before television actually was.One of the more interesting stories concerns the apparatus: the now forgotten competition between mechanical and electronic versions of television. The former, which used mechanical scanning devices to create an image, had been demonstrated as early as the 1880s. In the years following, people argued over whether images ought to be sent point-to-point (as via telegraph and telephone) or point-to-many-points. The popularity of network settled that debate in favor of broadcasting. They also argued over whether the new medium would transmit still images (like silhouettes and etchings) or moving images. The popularity of motion pictures settled that debate in favor of what were called radio movies. Then in 1927, the first all-electronic television was demonstrated and hailed as the better product. Mechanical television, which Sewell admits was less promising, never received a fair try. It lost early and quickly because the competition was controlled, not by technology but by public relations: network bureaucrats who had brought us broadcast had an unfair advantage.Here's how the debate was swayed. When hobbyists (like ham-radio enthusiasts) asked for do-it-yourself mechanical television sets, the NBC and CBS networks said the low-resolution quality of those sets couldn't measure up to what real television would be. …