Education by Radio (1937)

A Bulletin to Promote the Use of Radio for Educational, Cultural, and Civic Purposes R A D 1 O (L^^Ll4.catia^t Volume 7 MARCH 1937 Number 3 Social Values in Broadcasting WHAT DO THE EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL INTERESTS of the nation want from broadcasting? This question is asked fre¬ quently by commercial broadcasters, and with reason. Many radio station owners are sincere in their desire to cooperate with educa¬ tional groups and are eager to learn the basis on which cooperation will be forthcoming. So far they have had no complete answer. Perhaps there is no complete answer. However, some kind of a response to the question has to be made as a matter of common courtesy. Therefore this effort. While it does not represent an opinion with which all educators will be in agreement, it constitutes a chal¬ lenge for those who take exception to it to formulate a more compre¬ hensive statement. To break the subject wide open at the outset, it is suggested that the educational and cultural interests must be concerned in seeing to it that the total program output of all the broadcasting stations in the United States constitutes a socially constructive force. This assertion will cause surprise in many quarters and will raise imme¬ diately many questions, such as: “Why should educators be con¬ cerned with programs which are not designed to be educational?” and “What is the meaning of ‘socially constructive force’?” The only reason for this broad concern on the part of educators is the fact that, regardless of the intent of their producers, all radio programs have some educational effect. They impart information. They tend to condition attitudes and influence judgments. This fact has been proven to the satisfaction of advertisers, else they would not continue to sponsor programs in the hope of financial gain. As the cultural implication of the situation is driven home to educators, they recognize that they must be vitally concerned. The extent of educational influence of present day radio programs has never been determined. That must wait until some agency comes forward to finance scientific studies such as those made a few years ago in the field of motion pictures. In that area a group of eminent scientists, working in universities from Yale to Iowa State, did a piece of cooperative research in which they analyzed thoroly the in¬ fluence of motion pictures on children and youth. The results, pub¬ lished in eight volumes, summarized under the title. Motion Pictures and Youth, ^ indicated that this great medium of communication ac¬ tually affected children in the following ways: physically, as re¬ flected in sleep; emotionally, as recorded by the psychogalvanic technic; mentally, as shown by records of learning from movies and by changes in attitude brought about by them; and behavioristically, thru patterns of conduct molded by movies. It is likely that when equally comprehensive radio studies are 1 Charters, W. W. Motion Pictures and Youth. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1933. [9] "^TEW radio bills introduced into the ^ House of Representatives include the legislation proposed by Representative Celler of New York for a government-owned shortwave sta¬ tion, a resolution by Representative Connery of Massachusetts, and a bill by Representative Wearin of Iowa. Mr. Connery’s resolution calls for the appointment of a committee of seven to investigate monopoly in radio broadcasting and the effect of such monopoly on radio programs, advertising rates, and the public in general. Mr. Wearin’s bill calls for the complete separation of radio and newspapers. See page 11 for a more detailed statement of Mr. Celler’s bill. While little important radio legislation has been introduced into the Senate to date, it is expected that Senator Wheeler will soon introduce a bill to separate newspapers from radio stations. Men who made history, a weekly ed¬ ucational series designed for schoolroom listeners, was inaugurated over the NBC Blue Network on February 4 and may be heard every Thursday at 2pm, EST. This series was originally developed as part of the Ohio School of the Air by Meredith Page, supervisor of the Radio Work¬ shop at the Ohio State University. Network ac¬ ceptance of this program constitutes another rec¬ ognition of the quality of some of the educational broadcasting now being done by school groups. The civic leader, a publication of the Civic Education Service, 744 Jackson Place, Washington, D. C., recently contained a series of three articles which should be very helpful to teachers and others desiring to make use of the radio for educational purposes. The articles and the issues in which they appeared are as follows: “The Use of Radio in the Schools,” January 18, 1937; “The Use of Radio by the Schools,” Feb¬ ruary 1, 1937; and “Sources of Information on Radio,” February 8, 1937. STATION WHA, University of Wisconsin, Madison, is conducting a short course for “mike-shy” legislators. H. B. McCarty, program director of WHA is in charge of the course, which includes “Radio Speaking,” “Radio Writing,” and “Your Voice in Wax!”