Radio, Morality, and Culture: Britain, Canada, and the United States, 1919-1945 Book

Radio was considered an upstart in Great Britain, a puzzle in Canada, and a symbol of progress in the United States during the early twentieth century. In all three countries, when moral questions about the medium were raging, the church was invited to the debate but faltered because of infighting, and thereby failed to contribute a perspective that could have altered the future of radio. Radio, Morality, and Culture: Britain, Canada, and the United States, 1919?1945 examines the moral controversies surrounding radio?s development during its formative years. In comparing the fledgling medium in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States, Robert S. Fortner documents how the church failed to participate in radio?s moral development and instead engaged in internecine warfare over issues of legitimacy and orthodoxy. While radio policy was being developed and communications history was being written, the church was arguing about theological turf and dealing with internal disputes, Fortner explains. Radio, Morality, and Culture illustrates how, without a moral anchor, radio was at the whim of corporations whose foundation rested on political and social expediency, not principle. Fortner outlines why the absence of the church in the ethical discussions of radio?s development left a void just when laws and regulations were being passed. Profit-minded organizations?newspapers, trade associations, labor unions, and universities?instead claimed a stake in the moral outcome of the new medium, relegating the church to the position of nagging media critic with limited influence and relevance, Fortner offers. He also reveals that the church, doomed to play little more than a bit part in the future of radio, eventually lost its voice altogether in the continuing development of electronic media. Fortner effectively synthesizes cultural history and theory, communication studies, and the role religious organizations played in shaping the content and character of early radio. Geared to scholars of history, communications, and theology, Radio, Morality, and Culture provides a useful resource for research, scholarship, and public policy. "Interesting and penetrating in its analysis, Radio, Morality, and Culture: Britain, Canada, and the United States, 1919?1945 joins a growing literature of serious scholarship about radio?s origins. Fortner?s scholarship is excellent, his comparative approach valuable. He provides a solid analytical survey of how religion and radio institutions came to adjust to one another, adding important and comparative information to the discipline." ?Christopher H. Sterling, George Washington University "Radio, Morality, and Culture: Britain, Canada, and the United States, 1919?1945 presents a new understanding of how three Anglo cultures and philosophical perspectives incorporated radio into their societies. Fortner effectively analyzes and integrates the approaches to early broadcast regulation and industry formulation in relation to culturally determined moral perspectives. Scholars will welcome this book." ?Louise M. Benjamin, author of Freedom of the Air and the Public InterestRead More