There are three questions, each question needs 1-2 double spaces to answers. I have attached the study guide as well as helpful reading.
1. In this essay, I would like you to discuss the way that the public interest has been
defined in relation to broadcasting. When was the term first discussed formally and
when did it first appear in a piece of regulation? How does sustaining programming and
minority tastes and interests relate to the public interest? Was the controversy over
Mae Wests appearance on Chase and Sanborn one of the public interestwhy or why
not? Please refer to your readings and listenings in answering this question.
2. Your reading and lecture identifies the golden age of radio, a period in which the radio industry was at its peak of popularity, profitability, and (in retrospect) quality. In this essay, I want you to describe what this period was like in terms of programming (both in terms of prime time vs. daytime and in terms of some of the most popular genres on the air) and the structural/financial relationships both between networks and television stations as well as those between the sponsor, advertising agency, and network. Please refer to your readings and listenings in answering this question.
3. Weve read and talked quite a bit about the utopian and dystopian discourses that
accompany a communication technologys entry into society. In this essay, I want you to
compare the discourses that surrounded the wireless/early radio in the 1910s and 1920s
with that of televisions entry into the home in the late 1940s/early 1950s. What stage is
of the 5 stages of a communication technologys entry into society is this occurring in?
Were these utopian/dystopian discourses connected to particular qualities of these new
technologies? How might have these discourses been related to social/cultural/political/or spiritual concerns at the time? Please refer to your readings
in answering this question.
