Radio defined and defied American culture in the early 20th century, setting patterns for all media that followed. This text is a comprehensive history of the medium and includes such topics as: 1940s' radio suspense drama; quiz shows; American propagandists for Axis Powers; the Green Hornet and race; black liberation radio; NPR; and the Christian right and radio.

In the 1930s, radio's wide popularity created an important shared experience among Americans, from motorists and pedestrians on the city street to families on the living room couch after dinner. In Radio's Intimate Public, Jason Loviglio shows how early network radio produced a new type of community marked by the contradictions and tensions between public and private, mass media and democracy, and nation and family.

Radio voices were thrilling, Loviglio argues, because they moved with impunity back and forth between private and public. As a result of this new intimacy, the...

Radio's New Wave explores the evolution of audio media and sound scholarship in the digital age. Extending and updating the focus of their widely acclaimed 2001 book The Radio Reader, Hilmes and Loviglio gather together innovative work by both established and rising scholars to explore the ways that radio has transformed in the digital environment. Contributors explore what sound looks like on screens, how digital listening moves us, new forms of sonic expression, radio's convergence with mobile media, and the creative activities of old and new audiences. Even radio's history has been altered...