The Image Empire: A History of Broadcasting in the United States from 1953

A History of Broadcasting in the United States #3

by Erik Barnouw

During the 1950's, in a frontier atmosphere of enterprise and sharp struggle, an American television system took shape. But even as it did so, its pioneers pushed beyond American borders and became programmers to scores of other nations. In its first decade, United States television was already a world phenomenon. Since American radio had for some time had international ramifications, American images and sounds were radiating from transmitter towers throughout the globe. They were called entertainment or news or education, but were always more. They were a reflection of a growing United States involvement in the lives of other nations, an involvement of imperial scope. The role of broadcasters in this American expansion and in the era that produced it is the subject matter of The Image Empire, the last of three volumes comprising this study.

396 pages, Hardcover

First published November 15, 1970

Reviews

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m reading this book at a falafel place at which I often grab my lunch, and the fellow who runs the kitchen comes out and asks me, “What are you reading?”

So I show him the cover and say, “It’s a history of the television industry from 1953 to 1970.”

To which he then asks, “So is this a history that you like?”

And I am obliged to respond, “Well, no actually…” Quite the opposite, which is of course what interested me in reading it in the first place.

I have to say the only thing I was really disappointed with was how Barnouw reserved his lapses into abject screed and polemic against television programming, but he does a fine job with laying out the facts as they stood in 1970, the contours of the television commodities and the powers behind them. I would have definitely appreciated a bit more in-depth explanation of the advertising system, but he does provide an interesting quip from the ad industry’s psychoanalytic man Dr. Eric Dichter, and I imagine much more would be found in Barnouw’s two prior volumes on the history of radio broadcasting were I to look for it.

Barnouw is primarily writing from a political angle as opposed to an aesthetic one, so when he discusses the content of the glut of westerns and spy shows during these early days of the medium, he makes an interesting argument about the ideological world of the US citizenry during the Cold War. His tale emphasizes the pivotal role that US television and broadcasting played in the end of the McCarthy period, the Bay of Pigs invasion, and even the closure of Nikita Kruschev’s career. He paints a thorough picture of the industry as designed from its foundations to maintain a public both at home and abroad in a state of alternate reality.

[Maurice Savard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the third volume of a three volume history of broadcasting. Although it ends at the beginning of 1970, leaving out the rise of cable TV, PBS, NPR, and the birth of streaming, the three volumes are still a worthwhile overview of the years from 1920 (KDKA's first commercial broadcast) through 1970 (Vietnam and the moon landing). If you have any interest in the first fifty years of broadcasting, I highly recommended this set of books.