Sound Business tunes in on a neglected aspect of U.S. media history, the role newspaper owners played in the development of radio. This rigorously researched and balanced history of the news business and government regulation expands our understanding of mid-twentieth-century America and offers lessons for the digital age.

Sound Business
Newspapers, Radio, and the Politics of New Media

Michael Stamm

2011 | 264 pages | Cloth $45.00
American History | Business | Film/Media Studies
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Table of Contents

Introduction: Underwriting the Ether: Newspapers and the Origins of American Broadcasting
1. Power, Politics, and the Promise of New Media: Newspaper Ownership of Radio in the 1920s
2. New Empires: Media Concentration in the 1930s
3. Reshaping the Public Sphere: The New Deal and Media Concentration
4. Reform Liberalism and the Media: The Federal Communications Commission's Newspaper-Radio Investigation
5. Media Corporations and the Critical Public: The Struggle over Ownership Diversity in Postwar Broadcasting
Conclusion: The Persistence of Print: Newspapers and Broadcasting in the Age of Television

Appendix: Newspaper Ownership of American Broadcasting Stations, 1923-1953
List of Archival Abbreviations and Acronyms
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments