TY - JOUR
T1 - Across the waves
T2 - How the United States and France shaped the international age of radio
AU - Socolow, Michael J.
N1 - Funding Information:
The outbreak of the Second World War changed that dynamic. The book’s third chapter examines the ways in which NBC’s international division served the French citizenry under German occupation. Acting as a medium of communication for letter writers from France, NBC employed shortwave transmissions to help spread information and counter German propaganda. During this period, “daily broadcasts from the United States transformed the scope and significance of U.S.-French broadcasting,” Vaillant concludes (p. 52). In the postwar years, the two broadcasting communities would grow more intertwined. Funding from the U.S. government spurred renewed French production, as well as new transatlantic exchanges. The fourth chapter chronicles how the French Broadcasting System in North America, a unit of French national broadcaster Radiodiffusion Française, successfully distributed recorded programming to educational and independent stations around the United States. The French Broadcasting System recordings network—which lasted until the early 1970s and included over 200 U.S. stations —was funded (in part) by the Voice of America to serve the interests of both the U.S. and French governments. The collaboration’s goal was “‘to rebuild the respect of America’ for France,” (p. 85), as popular performers, such as Edith Piaf, attracted listeners to “Stars From Paris” and other programs. Across the Waves’s fifth chapter includes a particularly astute reading of the ways in which differing gender constructs in France and the United States informed “Bonjour Mesdames,” a women’s talk radio program produced in Paris for American listeners. Focused on fashion and culture, the program also subtly explored aspects of life in Paris that U.S tourists and expatriates would have found attractive and liberating. The final chapter chronicles the upheavals of 1968 in French radio, and the ways in which this period altered—and eventually ended—the model of collaboration in existence since the war. In these last years of exchange, French program production became more creative, innovative, and critical. Controversial political subjects
PY - 2018/8/1
Y1 - 2018/8/1
N2 - Broadcast history has taken a transnational turn. Whereas once radio studies focused almost exclusively on national systems, the global context is receiving new attention. New works exploring transnational collaboration and interchange in early radio and television are broadening our understanding of broadcasting’s development. Derek Vaillant’s Across the Waves provides an important addition to this growing body of scholarship. In exploring the interconnections between broadcasters in the United States and France from the early 1930s to the early 1970s, Vaillant details the numerous ways that the systems negotiated, cooperated, and collaborated. “This book,” Vaillant writes, “studies the users and developers of U.S.-French broadcasting to illuminate the complexity of international broadcasting and reveal its consequences for cultural affairs and geopolitics” (p. 3). Vaillant treats “international connectivity as central, rather than peripheral to the rise of modern broadcasting” (p. 4) by illustrating how United States and French broadcasters bridged differing (and often contrasting) cultural, political, and social conceptions of broadcasting.
AB - Broadcast history has taken a transnational turn. Whereas once radio studies focused almost exclusively on national systems, the global context is receiving new attention. New works exploring transnational collaboration and interchange in early radio and television are broadening our understanding of broadcasting’s development. Derek Vaillant’s Across the Waves provides an important addition to this growing body of scholarship. In exploring the interconnections between broadcasters in the United States and France from the early 1930s to the early 1970s, Vaillant details the numerous ways that the systems negotiated, cooperated, and collaborated. “This book,” Vaillant writes, “studies the users and developers of U.S.-French broadcasting to illuminate the complexity of international broadcasting and reveal its consequences for cultural affairs and geopolitics” (p. 3). Vaillant treats “international connectivity as central, rather than peripheral to the rise of modern broadcasting” (p. 4) by illustrating how United States and French broadcasters bridged differing (and often contrasting) cultural, political, and social conceptions of broadcasting.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85055846204&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/joc/jqy036
DO - 10.1093/joc/jqy036
M3 - Book/Film/Article review
AN - SCOPUS:85055846204
SN - 0021-9916
VL - 68
SP - 47
EP - 49
JO - Journal of Communication
JF - Journal of Communication
IS - 4
ER -