Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899-1922

Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology

by Susan J. Douglas

Such organizations as AT&T, General Electric, and the U.S. Navy played major roles in radio's evolution, but early press coverage may have decisively steered radio in the direction of mass entertainment. Susan J. Douglas reveals the origins of a corporate media system that today dominates the content and form of American communication.

Genres: History, Technology, Academic, Nonfiction

363 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1987

About the author

Susan J. Douglas is a prize-winning author, columnist, and cultural critic, and the Catherine Neafie Kellogg Professor of Communication Studies at The University of Michigan. Her book Where the Girls Are was widely praised, and chosen one of the top ten books of 1994 by National Public Radio, Entertainment Weekly and The McLaughlin Group. In her most recent book, Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message That Feminism’s Work Is Done (Henry Holt, 2010) Douglas continues her analysis of the mixed messages surrounding women, and the struggle she sees in the media between embedded feminism on the one hand and enlightened sexism on the other. And she takes on the myth that women “have it all” and that full equality for women has been achieved. She has lectured at colleges and universities around the country, and has appeared on The Today Show, The CBS Early Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Working Woman, CNBC's Equal Time, NPR's Fresh Air, Weekend Edition, The Diane Rehm Show, Talk of the Nation, and Michael Feldman’s Whad’ya Know.

She is also the author of The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How it Undermines Women (with Meredith Michaels, The Free Press, 2004); Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination (Times Books, 1999), which won the Hacker Prize in 2000 for the best popular book about technology and culture, and Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899-1922 (Johns Hopkins, 1987). Douglas has written for The Nation, In These Times, The Village Voice, Ms., The Washington Post and TV Guide, and was media critic for The Progressive from 1992-1998. Her column “Back Talk” appears monthly in In These Times.

Douglas is the 2010 Chair of the Board of The George Foster Peabody Awards, one of the most prestigious prizes in electronic media, which recognize distinguished achievement and meritorious service by radio and television networks, stations, producing organizations, cable television organizations, websites and individuals. In 1999 she was also named an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor for excellence in undergraduate education. She has a daughter, Ella, and lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with her husband, T.R. Durham.

Reviews

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent.

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

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