Listening In

Listening In

Radio And The American Imagination

Susan J. Douglas

The powerful effect of radio on American culture from Big Band music to Top 40 to conservative talk radio—now back in print!

432 Pages, 6 x 9 in

  • Paperback
  • 9780816644230
  • Published: February 25, 2004
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Listening In

Radio And The American Imagination

Susan J. Douglas

ISBN: 9780816644230

Publication date: February 25th, 2004

432 Pages

9 x 5

The powerful effect of radio on American culture from Big Band music to Top 40 to conservative talk radio—now back in print!

Few inventions evoke such nostalgia, such deeply personal and vivid memories as radio—from Amos ’n’ Andy and Edward R. Murrow to Wolfman Jack and Howard Stern. Listening In is the first in-depth history of how radio culture and content have kneaded and expanded the American psyche.

But Listening In is more than a history. It is also a reconsideration of what listening to radio has done to American culture in the twentieth century and how it has brought a completely new auditory dimension to our lives. Susan Douglas explores how listening has altered our day-to-day experiences and our own generational identities, cultivating different modes of listening in different eras; how radio has shaped our views of race, gender roles, ethnic barriers, family dynamics, leadership, and the generation gap. With her trademark wit, Douglas has created an eminently readable cultural history of radio.

Susan J. Douglas is professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and author of Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media.