Radio Goes to War: The Cultural Politics of Propaganda during World War II [Hardcover]

Gerd Horten (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 6, 2002

Radio Goes to War is the first comprehensive and in-depth look at the role of domestic radio in the United States during the Second World War. As this study convincingly demonstrates, radio broadcasting played a crucial role both in government propaganda and within the context of the broader cultural and political transformations of wartime America. Gerd Horten's absorbing narrative argues that no medium merged entertainment, propaganda, and advertising more effectively than radio. As a result, America's wartime radio propaganda emphasized an increasingly corporate and privatized vision of America's future, with important repercussions for the war years and the postwar era. Examining radio news programs, government propaganda shows, advertising, soap operas, and comedy programs, Horten situates radio wartime propaganda in the key shift from a Depression-era resentment of big business to the consumer and corporate culture of the postwar period.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"By focusing on the medium of radio during World War II, Horten has provided us with a window into an important change in radio broadcasting that has previously been ignored by historians. The depth of research, the book's contribution to our understanding of radio and the war make Radio Goes to War an outstanding work."-Lary May, author of The Big Tomorrow: Hollywood and the Politics of the American Way; "Radio broadcasting, and its impact on American life, still remains a neglected area of our national history. Radio Goes to War demonstrates conclusively how short-sighted that omission is. As we enter what is sure to be another era of contested claims of government control over freedom of speech, the controversies and compromises of wartime broadcasting sixty years ago provide an ominous example of difficult decisions to be made in the future. The alliance of big business, advertising, and wartime propaganda that Horten so convincingly illuminates takes on a heightened significance, especially as this relationship has tightened in the last several decades. When radio and television go to war again, will they follow the same course? This is cautionary reading for our new century."-Michele Hilmes, author of Radio Voices: American Broadcasting 1922-1952

From the Inside Flap

"By focusing on the medium of radio during World War II, Horten has provided us with a window into an important change in radio broadcasting that has previously been ignored by historians. The depth of research, the book's contribution to our understanding of radio and the war make Radio Goes to War an outstanding work."--Lary May, author of The Big Tomorrow: Hollywood and the Politics of the American Way

"Radio broadcasting, and its impact on American life, still remains a neglected area of our national history. Radio Goes to War demonstrates conclusively how short-sighted that omission is. As we enter what is sure to be another era of contested claims of government control over freedom of speech, the controversies and compromises of wartime broadcasting sixty years ago provide an ominous example of difficult decisions to be made in the future. The alliance of big business, advertising, and wartime propaganda that Horten so convincingly illuminates takes on a heightened significance, especially as this relationship has tightened in the last several decades. When radio and television go to war again, will they follow the same course? This is cautionary reading for our new century."--Michele Hilmes, author of Radio Voices: American Broadcasting 1922-1952

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 232 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (February 6, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520207831
• ISBN-13: 978-0520207837
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,195,471 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Radio Goes To War, September 2, 2003

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The Independent Review (Oakland, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Radio Goes to War: The Cultural Politics of Propaganda during World War II (Hardcover)

(excerpted from The Independent Review, Summer 2002)

Horten's slim but rich study of broadcasting in the United States during World War II is a welcome addition to the literatures on radio, propaganda, advertising, and the war. It is a juggling act as well, at times a conventional historical account and at times something closer to cultural studies. It is an impressive performance, and only at the end does Horten drop one of the juggling pins to the floor.

With war propaganda embedded in ads and advertisements embedded in war propaganda - and both embedded in listeners' favorite programs - domestic public relations began to take a new turn. Horten writes sensitively about the interplay between different genres of programming and about the officially sponsored messages they now incorporated. Nor does he neglect the times when programs managed to undermine the official messages. The result is an excellent and multifaceted study that breaks new ground in radio history.

The book's epilogue, unfortunately, moves into a new territory, plunging suddenly into the much larger topic of America's "privatized" postwar culture. In this book, the meaning of privitization is shaky; it seems to refer more to the private sphere than to the private sector, though at times even that distinction gets blurred.

Why does Horten conclude an otherwise well-focused study with a broad new topic that he lacks adequate room to explore? Because one of the themes of the book is that this cultural shift, however you choose to define it, began during World War II, not afterward, and that it can be seen in the wartime alignment of private advertising and public propaganda. It is a substantial and defensible point, and I am glad he makes it, but I wish he had left it at that, reserving the larger social speculations for his next book.

5.0 out of 5 stars Radio Goes to War: The Cultural Politics of Propaganda during World War 11, May 19, 2011

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Liz Freer - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Radio Goes to War: The Cultural Politics of Propaganda during World War II (Paperback)

This book provides an indepth look at radio as a political and social tool for propaganda during WW11 and provides another insight into America during WW11.

4.0 out of 5 stars a great book but a silly ending, July 10, 2010

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david m (austin tx) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Radio Goes to War: The Cultural Politics of Propaganda during World War II (Paperback)

Horton makes a very useful contribution to media studies during WWII. I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this is the first book within media studies to deal exclusively with radio propaganda during the war. As this was by far Americans' most important source of news and entertainment the lack of attention is curious.

However, "Independent Review" in Oakland hits the nail on the head. The ending is very weak. I think the "discourse of privatization" that he identifies certainly provided ideological bullets for the fight against global communism during the 1950's, but (as "independent review" has already stated) that's another book.