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Session Submission Summary

Listening Learners: The Political Economy of Media Education During the New Deal, 1935-1948

Sat, May 23, 9:00 to 10:15, Caribe Hilton, San Cristobal Ballroom D

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This panel examines the legacy of the U.S. Federal Radio Education Committee (FREC) for media education policy, content and reception. The FREC was created after the passage of the 1934 Communications Act as a concession to educational broadcasters. Our papers argue that much can be learned about the problems and possibilities of media education from the experiments undertaken by the FREC. Defined by the innovation of new political, strategic, aesthetic, and intellectual approaches to the question of technology, the FREC aggregated multiple commercial, academic, and bureaucratic groups into a single consortium for a brief period after 1934. The result was that educational research was injected into commercial network development, and educators appropriated commercial aesthetics.
This period in broadcasting helps us understand a couple of larger questions that remain relevant today. First, how do we understand broadcast communication in relation to education as a practice? This study sheds light on 1930s debates on whether mass communication can or should be a means of "manufacturing consent," or a means of encouraging critical questioning and debate. The activities of the FREC suggest that by the late 1930s there was a general acceptance of "mass communication" as a type of instrumental communication that was both good and necessary. Second, how does broadcasting work as educational discourse? Early communication researchers observed the process of modeling in radio, and Charles Siepmann introduced methods of BBC program development into American content production. We see an early awareness of what would become a common way of thinking about media education in Education Entertainment circles. This panel provides an historical perspective on the interconnection between education and entertainment that remains relevant for understanding today's media.
Our panel is comprised of four papers. Josh Shepperd (Catholic University) looks at the immediate influence of the Communications Act upon federal development of intellectual and curricular standards for radio practice and reception, and how standards instituted at this time were later applied to educational policy. Joy Elizabeth Hayes (University of Iowa) looks at how educational content produced directly after 1934 created the programming precedent for what became Education Entertainment. David Goodman (University of Melbourne) looks at post-Act listening groups that were created not only to expand access to educational radio, but to teach listeners how to learn via radio. Victor Pickard (University of Pennsylvania) examines educational radio pioneer Charles Siepmann’s post-1934 influence upon public, commercial, and philanthropic approaches to broadcasting.

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