Radio, Morality, and Culture

Britain, Canada, and the United States, 1919-1945

Robert S. Fortner

October
cloth, 0-8093-2664-7, $45.00s
288 pages, 6 x 9, 2 illus.

Radio / Communications History

Radio, Morality, and Culture: Britain, Canada, and the United States, 1919–1945 examines the moral controversies surrounding radio’s development during its formative years. In comparing the fledgling medium in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States, Robert S. Fortner documents how the church failed to participate in radio’s moral development and instead engaged in internecine warfare over issues of legitimacy and orthodoxy.

The church was arguing about theological turf and dealing with internal disputes while radio policy was being developed and communications history was being written. Fortner reveals how the church, doomed to play little more than a bit part in the future of radio, eventually lost its voice altogether in the continuing development of electronic media. Fortner effectively synthesizes cultural history and theory, communication studies, and the role religious organizations played in shaping the content and character of early radio. Geared to scholars of history, communications, and theology, Radio, Morality, and Culture provides a useful resource for research, scholarship, and public policy.

“Interesting and penetrating in its analysis, Radio, Morality, and Culture: Britain, Canada, and the United States, 1919–1945 joins a growing literature of serious scholarship about radio’s origins. Fortner’s scholarship is excellent, his comparative approach valuable. He provides a solid analytical survey of how religion and radio institutions came to adjust to one another, adding important and comparative information to the discipline.”

—Christopher H. Sterling, George Washington University

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Robert S. Fortner, a professor of communication arts and sciences at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is the author of several books, including International Communication and Public Diplomacy and International Politics. He has served as a panelist for the National Academy of Sciences, led media workshops in more than twenty countries, and conducted research for the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Voice of America, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.