Emergency Broadcasting and 1930s American Radio
by Edward D. Miller
Category: History

The voice we hear on the radio—the voice with no body attached—is a key element in the history of media in the twentieth century. Before television and the internet, there was radio; and much of what defined the makeup of these newer media was influenced by the way radio was broadcast to people and the way people listened to it.Emergency Broadcastingfocuses on key moments in the history of early radio in order to come to an understanding of the role voice played in radio to describe national crises, a fictional invasion from outer space, and general entertainment. Taking the Hindenburg disaster,The War of the Worldshoax, Franklin Roosevelt's Fireside Chats, and the serial mysteryThe Shadowas his focal points, Edward Miller illustrates how the radio, for the first time, instantly communicated to a mass audience, and how that communication—where the voice counts more than the image—is still at work today in television and the World Wide Web. Theoretically sophisticated, yet grounded in historical detail,Emergency Broadcastingoffers a unique examination of radio and at the same time develops a complex understanding of the media whose birth is owed to the innovations—and disembodied power—established by it. Author note:Edward D. Milleris Chair of the Department of Media Culture at The College of Staten Island/CUNY.