History of Educational and Public Broadcasting in the United States

美国教育和公共广播的历史

• 批准号: 0004223
• 负责人: Hugh Slotten
• 金额: $ 13.9万
• 依托单位: Slotten, Hugh R
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2001
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2001-02-15 至 2004-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0004223&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: History; Educational; Public; Broadcasting; United

This three-year award supports research and writing of a book and related articles analyzing alternative systems of broadcasting in the United States that developed in opposition to the dominant commercial model based on advertising and private industry support. Historians of technology have emphasized that the commercialization of broadcasting in the United States was not "inevitable" but depended on contingent circumstances, yet nearly all major studies of the broadcast industry and broadcast technology in the United States have analyzed the dominant commercial systems, obscuring the historical importance of alternative systems of broadcasting. Dr. Slotten intends to examine the historical development of the most important form of noncommercial broadcasting in the United States, those with a primary public service commitment to education. This educational tradition dates from the 1920s, when large-scale broadcasting first developed. The federal government decided that because the radio spectrum was a public resource, broadcasters should demonstrate that they served the public interest in order to retain a license. Partly because some of the first radio stations in the United States were developed by land-grant universities, a commitment to education became a central means of defining the public interest standard. But the idea that a "great technology" should be used for "great purposes"--including educating, informing, and uplifting citizens-has been an essential historical theme that has existed alongside and in opposition to dominant commercial developments throughout the entire history of broadcasting in the United States. Promoters of the educational role of broadcasting emphasized the ability of radio and television to reach a mass audience and the potential to provide even the weakest or poorest schools with the best teachers and a high-quality education.Dr. Slotten draws upon extensive archival research to analyze both educational broadcasting and the early development of "public broadcasting," a term developed by U.S. policymakers during the late 1960s who established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as a way to support noncommercial forms of broadcasting. These policymakers sought to replace the traditional term "educational" in order to broaden political support, drawing upon arguments concerning cultural uplift and citizenship training through public affairs programming. But by examining the history of educational and "public" broadcasting from approximately 1920 to the early 1970s, the project analyzes the different-and often contested--meanings of education, especially in relation to programming aimed at entertaining, uplifting, and informing different groups in different regions of the country, both urban and rural. The resulting publications are intended to provide an historical perspective for debates about "high-tech" innovations and education. Contemporary visions of the internet as a commercial product serving a mass culture or as a public service/educational resource suggest that this is a central theme in the history of communications technology in the United States.

这个为期三年的奖项支持研究和撰写一本书和相关文章，分析美国的其他广播系统，这些系统是与基于广告和私营企业支持的主导商业模式相反发展起来的。技术历史学家强调，美国广播的商业化不是“不可避免的”，而是取决于偶然的情况，然而，几乎所有关于美国广播行业和广播技术的主要研究都分析了占主导地位的商业系统，掩盖了其他广播系统的历史重要性。斯洛滕博士打算研究美国最重要的非商业广播形式的历史发展，即那些以教育为主要公共服务承诺的广播。这种教育传统可以追溯到20世纪20年代，当时大规模广播刚刚发展起来。联邦政府决定，由于无线电频谱是公共资源，广播公司应该证明他们为公众利益服务，以保留许可证。部分原因是美国最早的一些广播电台是由赠地大学开发的，对教育的承诺成为定义公共利益标准的核心手段。但是，“伟大的技术”应该被用于“伟大的目的”——包括教育、信息和提升公民——这一理念一直是一个重要的历史主题，在美国广播的整个历史中，它一直与占主导地位的商业发展并存，并与之相对立。提倡广播在教育方面的作用的人强调广播和电视能够接触到广大观众，并有可能为最薄弱或最贫穷的学校提供最好的教师和高质量的教育。斯洛滕利用大量的档案研究来分析教育广播和“公共广播”的早期发展，“公共广播”是美国决策者在20世纪60年代末建立的公共广播公司，作为支持非商业广播形式的一种方式。这些决策者试图取代传统的“教育”一词，以扩大政治支持，利用有关文化提升和通过公共事务规划进行公民培训的论点。但是，通过考察大约从1920年到20世纪70年代初的教育和“公共”广播的历史，该项目分析了教育的不同（经常有争议的）含义，特别是与旨在娱乐、提升和告知该国不同地区（包括城市和农村）不同群体的节目有关。由此产生的出版物旨在为有关“高科技”创新和教育的辩论提供一个历史视角。互联网作为一种服务于大众文化的商业产品或公共服务/教育资源的当代愿景表明，这是美国通信技术史上的一个中心主题。