The New Mass Culture

The New mass culture

Sports and Celebrities

Big time sports enter corporate phase

Baseball quickly becoming biggest sport in America

Amelia Earhart, Babe Ruth among most famous people in US

Sports writing became bigger; Grantland Rice, Ring Lardner, Heywood Broun among the top

Radio Broadcasting

More endorsments being handed out to celebrities

New Forms of Journalism

The Tabloid Style

Walter Winchell:

The Gossip Column

- Originally attracted attention in Pittsburgh, PA

- By end of decade, 12 million homes had radios

- Commercial Broadcasting paid for programs

- Many new possibilities developed

- $426 million dollars profit by end of decade

Frank Conrad's Garage Broadcasting Station

Origin of Radio Broadcasting

New Possibilities

- New York Daily News - first to develop tabloid in 1919

- Emphasized sex, scandal, and sports to attract new readers - mostly poor city workers

- Mass Influence in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago

- Walter Winchell - invented Gossip Column, most widely read/imitated journalist by end of decade

- Journalism contributed to the growth of a national consumer community

- Introduced live popular music

- Playing of phonograph records

- Talks by college professors

- Church services

- News/weather reports

- Prior to the 20's, radios were mainly used for war purposes

- November 1920: Garage in Pittsburgh was first to broadcast

- Westinghouse, KDKA, and other companies took note on local transmissions

Spreading Popularity

Commercial Broadcasting

- Dept. stores advertised radio sets as "wireless concerts"

- KDKA: First commercial radio station to offer regular nightly broadcasts

- 1923: 600 stations licensed by Dept. of Commerce

- Popular Shows: The Eveready Hour, The Ipana Troubadors, and The Taystee Loafers

- AT&T leased nationwide system to allow linking of many stations into powerful radio networks

- Created national group of listeners through NBC and CBS

- Broadcasting of programming by privately owned corporate media rather than by state sponsorship

- System is still used today

- "Listeners are the consumers, but sponsors are the customers"

The New Mass Culture

Movie-Made America

• New phase of business expansion

• The start of censorship

• Ended age of silent movies

• Increased studio reliance on investors & banks

• Established National norms for our culture

• Played a large part in "culture of consumption

• Redefined what it meant to be "normal"

Business Expansion

• Popular in large cities

• 1922-40 million people going to theaters
• immigrants + working class

• 1930-100 million

• Theaters designed for younger audiences

Advertising Modernity

• Large companies dominated business

Censorship

Reliance on Banks and Wall Street Investors

Silent Movies

• People in rural areas worried about morality

• Became an issue when people began protesting

• Will Hays
• President of MPP (Motion Picture Producers)
• wrote pamphlets defending business
• settled what could be shown on screen
• lobbied against censorship laws

• Jazz Singer opened in NYC
• cost $500,000 to make

• HUGE success for Warner Bros.
• increased popularity for Warner Bros.
• won an Oscar at the 1st Academy Awards

• Revolutionized movie industry

• Everyone had to pay more to make movies, more dependence on investors

• "The Jazz Singer-1927
• created by Warner Brothers
• wasn't actually the first movie with sound
• first movie with dialogue "a talkie"

• Created with Vitaphone
• Department of AT&T
• often turned down by large Hollywood companies, (accepted by Warner Bros.)

• 1927-1929- movie duplicates made to support silent theaters

Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America

• Founded in 1922
• Protects creative content from piracy
• Rates movies (PG, PG-13, R, etc.)
• Controls censorship

• Advertising industry began to blossom
• Profits increased rapidly
• Agenicies started to use modern ways of communication

Effects of New Advertising

The Start of Advertising

• Agencies started to use different types of media to advertise

• Started as newspapers and magazines

• With the new types of advertising profits increased to $3 billion

• Products became household names
• Kleenex
• Fleischmann’s Yeast

• Began to expand during WWI to promote and "sell" the war

• Listerine profits increased rapidly
• $100,000 to $4 billion in 5 years

The Phonograph and Recording Industry

Advertising Appeals

Well-financed Ad campaigns

• Tactics ad agencies used to appeal to the consumers include:

It was necessary for the campaign to be backed with money to sell their idea.

• sense of nature
• Medical authority
• Personal freedom

Some of these appeals are still used today

Well financed ad campaigns included:

• Cars/automobiles
• Electrical appliances
• Personal hygiene products

• Invented in 1890’s
• Popular entertainment in 1920’s
• Used wax cylinders to record and play music
• Created dance crazes like the fox trot, tango, and the grizzly bear
• 1921: total sale of 10 million records
• Started crossing musical genres

A New Morality

Overall Results of New Mass Media

-Elite figures in society

-Mass media and celebrity influence

-Flappers

-Dance and Music

-Sexual appeal was used

Celebrity Influence

- Trends became popular from celebrities

-The youth wanted to be like their role models

Sexual Appeal

- Movies, Radios, and Phonographs all became prominent technologies

- Advertising used shock factors and sexuality to sell their campaigns

- Celebrities were idolized and Journalism made the reader feel "on the inside"

-Attractive women were used to advertise products

-People who smoked were cool and good looking

Flappers

Dance and Music

-Were sexually aggressive women

-Bobbed hair, rouged cheeks, short skirts

- Jazz music became popular and led to new types of dancing

-The Foxtrot, Waltz, and the American Tango