Capturing Flow: The Historical Formation of a Radio Bootlegging Community in the United States

• In Event: Radio Voices: Cultures, Networks, and Ideologies

Abstract

This essay traces the growth of the US radio collector community in the 1970s, considering how radio bootlegging reconfigures our understanding of broadcasting as a material object. Situating this formation of a radio audience community during the post-war electronics boom and hi-fidelity movement, I map out the common practices that bootleggers developed distinct to collecting and trading radio, and argue bootlegging as sound duplication became a form of media production. Lastly, I conclude by outlining the various reasons radio collectors of the 1970s found pleasure in radio collecting.

Author

• Eleanor Joyce Patterson, U of Iowa