Date of Award

6-1938

Degree Type

Bachelors Essay

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

Department

Communication

Abstract

With the development of a new media of communication -- the radio -- the status of the newspaper is necessarily affected. As a purveyor of news, and probably more important, of advertising, the radio's entrance into daily life of 122,000,000 Americans may constitute a serious competitive threat to the Fourth Estate. Whether the radio will ever replace the newspaper is a matter of discussion in editorial and broadcasting groups at the present time, and its possibility of relegating the press to the status of a second-rank media of news distribution is a matter that is looked upon with more than a little concern. Radio as an exclusive news-dispenser! What at one time appeared remote has now developed to such a dangerous point that today it looms as a news channel. The newly improved mechanisms which would bring a printed newspaper page into every home in the nation has added strength to the movement for substitution of ether waves for lead and type. Even news broadcasts at regularly scheduled times on every local radio station have given strength to the anti-newspaper impetus.

On the other hand, however, are those elements which would indicate that the newspaper's place in society is secure; that the appeal of the printed page still reigns supreme over the spoken word; that regardless of the effectiveness of radio advertising, such method of self-promotion can never become omnipotent. It is the purpose of this thesis to weigh the facts on each side of the ledger to determine, in a measure, the possibility and probability of the controversy between press and radio developing into more than a minor competitive battle.

Comments

A thesis submitted to the faculty of the College of Journalism in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a degree of Bachelor of Philosophy in Journalism, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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