Consumption as Equipment for Living

1. What is a “Consumer Identity?” Consumption is democratic Consumption serves status-seeking Consumption leads to self-improvement Consumption is community-oriented [Christmas; Macy’s Day Parade] Consumption as Equipment for Living Consumption is linked to image of White MC Prosperity

2. Is Mass Culture Equipment for Living? “It is inconceivable that we should allow so great a possibility for service, for news, for entertainment, for education, and for vital commercial purposes, to be drowned in advertising chatter.” —Sec’y of Commerce Hoover, 1922

3. Work Family Religion Community The Life of Ethnic Immigrants

4. “Neighborhood theaters so respected local culture that they reflected community prejudices as well as strengths.” —Ewen, (S16) Movies as Shared Community NO Blacks or Mexicans Allowed!

5. Movie Theaters “One American institution became a realm of shared cultural experience for mothers and daughters: the movies. While immigrant parents battled their daughters’ assertion of the right to participate in most of the recreational institutions of the city, everyone went to the movies.” —Ewen, (S50)

6. Radio Penetration Rates, 1930

7. Early Radio History • Pre-WWI: a point-to-point medium • Dominated by “ham operators” From Amateur Work, June 1904

8. Two Questions • Who gets access to the airwaves? • Who is going to pay for the medium?

9. In what context did immigrants listen to radio? “Even Chicago’s working-class youth, whose parents feared they were abandoning the ethnic fold for the more commercialized mass culture, were listening to the radio in the company of other second-generation ethnic peers at neighborhood clubs when not at home with their families.” —Liz Cohen, (p. 17)

10. Political Struggle “In the competition among stations at the end of the 1920s to win favor from the FRC, network interests appealed to the entertainment and information needs of a nation understood implicitly to be white and American. Local radio operators championed a competing model of localism, whose electronic public culture consisted of the voices and musics of dozens of different ethnic groups understood implicitly to be ethnic, white, and American.” —Vaillant, (p. 30) Benefit for WCFL, “The Voice of Labor,” 1927

11. African American Experience “Race Business”

12. African American Experience Why might African Americans prefer standardized products and chain stores?

13. African Americans and Radio “Presence and absence” The Weener Minstrels

14. Networks argued that ONLY they served the public interest ACCESS

15. Networks argue that consumerism is an expression of democracy Economics

16. NBC & CBS • By the end of 1927, NBC had 48 affiliated stations • NBC-Red • NBC-Blue • Competition from CBS (16 Affiliates in 1927)

17. “The Sound of Whiteness” Amos ‘n Andy

18. Enshrines Public Utility Model Scarcity Argument Ownership Restrictions Must operate in “public interest, convenience and necessity” But Confirms Private Ownership of airwaves once and for all Wagner-Hatfield Amendment defeated 1934 Communications Act