INVENTING AMERICAN BROADCASTING 1899 – 1922
By Susan J. Douglas
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987, 363 pages
Reviewed by Michael Beach
The work in question looks at the forces that brought about the technology leading to the early radio industry. The focus is on invention of technology followed by invention of the businesses that intended to capitalize on the technology. Douglas also looks at the networks (people, society, technology, regulation, etc.) that helped steer events that lead to the industry.
In the area of people there were inventors, business leaders, the press, and politicians. They are described variously as the outsider, self-made, those with connections, tinkerers, academics, hero-inventor, boy-hero-inventor, diligent, hard-working. Motivations included fame, wealth, knowledge, and a use of intellect as a form of masculinity.
Tools the early inventors used were technology (patents), business acumen and the press. Often the successful inventors were missing one or more of these and found partners to hit all three of these areas. The book also looks at power or control. Captains at sea had total autonomy at sea. Once wireless was available to the admiralty, the captain suddenly had less power. There were tensions over control between inventors and their business partners; commercial, military and amateur interests in wireless; and arguments for and against regulation.
Douglas also shows evolutionary forces in the industry. Technology has to move from innovation, to incorporation, to monetization. Wired telegraphy gave way to wireless telegraphy, which in turn gave way to wireless entertainment to the masses. The wireless technology moved from the spark system, to the audion tube, to crystal sets. Transmission migrated from encoding using Morse code to continuous wave and voice. The press showed inventors as heroes, then failures, then heroes again. Amateur operators were first depicted as heroes, then wireless meddlers, then skilled enlistees for the military.
The work shows early events that seem as shadows of events we see today. For example, during emergencies the airwaves, that were not regulated at first, became overloaded (jammed) with interference of many operators trying to talk at once. This is not unlike how cell phone circuits can get tied up by overuse in an emergency. During the Titanic disaster some operators spread false information that the Titanic was safe and on its way home. This sounds not unlike our world of so called “fake news.” The amateur operators were both “faceless and yet known at the same time.” They could be equated with social media trolls or lurkers.
Ownership was another theme explored by Douglas. The airwaves (or ether as it was called) was not a thing, but became a thing. As a thing, who owned it? Would it be public or private property? If public, who would represent “the people”?
A few other themes in the book include how external events such as shipwrecks, international conferences and international rivalries shaped the use of airwaves. All involved were seeking some mechanism to make order out of chaos. A need to create order is a human value not shared by all people. There is also an examination of the haves and have-nots. On the surface the early days of radio seemed opened to all, but there really were conscripting influences that made access not so open.
The read would appeal to those who study how technology and society interact. Historians, broadcasters, business people, inventors might also find the work worth reading.
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