32401

WiSe 15/16: From Telegraphy to Cable TV: History of US-Media

Maria-Michaela Hampf

Comments

This seminar will approach the history of electronic mass media in the United States from several perspectives. With the electrical telegraph, which has been dubbed the „Victorian Internet“, began the first communication revolution of the 19th and 20th centuries. Radio evolved from the „wireless“, organized in a radically different fashion than in Britain and Europe. Noncommercial stations were quickly marginalized and radio saw its golden days between the 1920s and its replacement as the dominant home entertainment medium by television in the 1950s and 60s. In its early days, radio featured genres and formats popular in older forms of American entertainment, and many of these such as adventure, comedy, drama, horror, mystery, musical variety, along with news and commentary, panel discussions, quiz shows, sports broadcasts and the indestructible soap opera, were taken up by television and may well survive both media as we know them. Sound recordings and the radio played a crucial role for the war effort during WWII. Apart from the cultural history of electronic mass media, the seminar will also explore some issues of communications policy in the U.S., as well as the media’s impact on publics (and counterpublics) in the United States and abroad. The Vertiefungsseminar will also cover disciplinary methods, analytic instruments and different approaches to writing North American history. This seminar will approach the history of electronic mass media in the United States from several perspectives. With the electrical telegraph, which has been dubbed the „Victorian Internet“, began the first communication revolution of the 19th and 20th centuries. Radio evolved from the „wireless“, organized in a radically different fashion than in Britain and Europe. Noncommercial stations were quickly marginalized and radio saw its golden days between the 1920s and its replacement as the dominant home entertainment medium by television in the 1950s and 60s. In its early days, radio featured genres and formats popular in older forms of American entertainment, and many of these such as adventure, comedy, drama, horror, mystery, musical variety, along with news and commentary, panel discussions, quiz shows, sports broadcasts and the indestructible soap opera, were taken up by television and may well survive both media as we know them. Sound recordings and the radio played a crucial role for the war effort during WWII. Apart from the cultural history of electronic mass media, the seminar will also explore some issues of communications policy in the U.S., as well as the media’s impact on publics (and counterpublics) in the United States and abroad. The Vertiefungsseminar will also cover disciplinary methods, analytic instruments and different approaches to writing North American history. close