As the dominant form of electronic mass communication in the United States from the 1930s into the 1950s, radio helped to forge a modern continental nation. It fused myriad subcultures--heavily rural, ethnic, and immigrant--into a national identity, unifying the nation in the face of the Depression and war. Later, federal deregulation allowed the radio of the "Golden Age," 1926-1952, to devolve into a chain-dominated, satellite-fed plaything of Wall Street. Today, radio has the highest profit ratio of all the media outlets--and Golden Age traditions of programming taste, diversity, balance,...
As the dominant form of electronic mass communication in the United States from the 1930s into the 1950s, radio helped to forge a modern continental n...