Michael J Socolow
Biographic Data
| ID | 995757 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael J Socolow |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael J |
| FAMILY NAME | Socolow |
| SIGNATURE | SOCOLOW M J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Maine , Orono, Maine |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6365-2821 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 11 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Cover-Up
The Missouri Model of Radio Preservation
A pioneering statewide effort to collect, digitize, and preserve local commercial radio station recordings in Missouri constitutes a singular and valuable model of collaboration and cooperation among multiple organizations. Under the direction of veteran broadcaster Frank Absher, who founded the St. Louis Media History Foundation, the “Missouri model” of radio preservation has resulted in numerous airchecks, commercials, and other historical audi…
Lawyers, Los Angeles, and Le Show
In 1994 and 1995, the O. J. Simpson double-murder trial was ubiquitous in American culture. Over the span of approximately 15 months, it became the focus of American news reporting, comedy shows, and radio and television talk programs. This article examines the remembered experience of one broadcast journalist, a CNN assignment editor in the Los Angeles bureau covering the Simpson case, and his listenership to one specific program, Harry Shearer’…
September 5
Radical Wolfe
Journal Article Radical Wolfe Get access Radical Wolfe. Dir. by Richard Dewey. Prod. by Richard Dewey, Andy Fortenbacher, and Chris Laszlo. Kino Lorber, 2023. 76 mins. (https://kinolorber.com/film/radical-wolfe) Michael J Socolow Michael J Socolow University of Maine, Orono, Maine Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 111, Issue 1, June 2024, Pages 205–206, https://doi.org/10.…
Taken Hostage
Journal Article Taken Hostage Get access Taken Hostage. Dir. by Robert Stone. Prod. by Robert Stone, Nariman Hamed, and Cameo George. Robert Stone Productions Film for American Experience, Pbs, 2021. 226 mins. (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/taken-hostage/) Michael J Socolow Michael J Socolow University of Maine, Orono, Maine Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, V…
Citizen Hearst: An American Experience Special
William Randolph Hearst remains a legendary figure in American history. Shrouded in myth, with popular understanding of his life distorted by a classic Hollywood film, the actual human named William Randolph Hearst continues to be elusive. Thus, any documentary purporting to accurately profile Hearst, and the world he influenced, faces daunting obstacles. Not only must it debunk self-serving myths that Hearst himself cultivated but it also must c…
“Comparing Australian, British, Canadian, and U.S. Broadcasting: The 1934 Radio Reports Compiled by Australian Broadcasting Commissioner E.M.R. Couchman”
In 1934, Australian Broadcasting Commissioner E.M.R. Couchman traveled to North America and Europe. While visiting Canada, the United States, and Great Britain, Couchman met with radio executives to research and compile analyses of each nation’s broadcasting development. Her final reports offer valuable snapshots of early network radio in national broadcasting’s formative era, yet they remain largely uncited in the historiography of radio. This a…
Australians are the Greatest Sport Loving People in the World’: Sport Broadcasting’s Role in the Development of National Radio in Australia, 1925–1935
Sport programming played a vital and catalytic role in the development of national relay and network broadcasting in the first decade of Australian radio. Sport programmes sold radio apparatuses, attracted listeners willing to pay for licenses, and provided live entertainment drawing large and appreciative audiences to radio relays throughout the nation. They also propagated a unifying ideal of Australian nationalism while helping develop a truly…
Walter Winchell: The Power of Gossip
Walter Winchell was, without question, one of the most influential journalists in U.S. history. His legacy informs, and even structures, our contemporary media environment. Yet he is almost entirely forgotten. That fact attests to both the ephemerality of celebrity in the broadcast age and to widespread ignorance about the origins of our current media ecosystem. Walter Winchell: The Power of Gossip, an episode in Pbs's American Masters series, re…
Radio’s Waves of History: Media Activism and National Radio Network Historiography in the United States
The publication of U.S. radio network history began less than five years after the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) inaugurated national service. This descriptive analysis of U.S. radio network historiography periodizes the emergence of four waves of radio network history between 1930 and 2020, and illustrates how social, political, and regulatory activism influenced the emergence of new perspectives on t…
Mike Wallace Is Here
Mike Wallace Is Here documents the life and career of the legendary American broadcaster Mike Wallace. The film interweaves clips from Wallace's most famous interviews with personal remembrances, commentary, and archival materials to produce a detailed and incisive portrayal of American television's most effective interrogator. Television stardom, in the United States, has proven ephemeral. Once-famous television celebrities such as Ed Sullivan, …
Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes
He was a paranoiac, a misogynistic bully, and an evil man. He was also obese, objectively unattractive, and he obtained sadistic delight in ruining the careers of women who rejected his slimy advances. Yet he also revolutionized American television production and forever altered the political economy of the media in the United States. That Roger Ailes behaved abhorrently with coworkers throughout his career is undeniable. Divide and Conquer is a …
Rolling Stone: Stories from the Edge
Over the course of almost four hours, this two-part documentary chronicles the history of one of the twentieth-century's most influential magazines. Rolling Stone, first published in San Francisco in 1967, began as a periodical dedicated to rock-and-roll music and youth culture. From its inception, Rolling Stone was propelled by the vision of its founding editor and publisher, Jann Wenner. Like such historic American journalists as James Gordon B…
Six Minutes in Berlin: Broadcast Spectacle and Rowing Gold at the Nazi Olympics
The Berlin Olympics, August 14, 1936. German rowers, dominant at the Games, line up against America's top eight-oared crew. Hundreds of millions of listeners worldwide wait by their radios. Leni Riefenstahl prepares her cameramen. Grantland Rice looks past the 75,000 spectators crowding the riverbank. Above it all, the Nazi leadership, flush with the propaganda triumph the Olympics have given their New Germany, await a crowning victory they can b…
Live from “America’s Rhineland”: The Poughkeepsie Regatta and Early American Network Sports Broadcasting, 1925–1940
Between 1925 and 1940, the Intercollegiate Rowing Association’s annual championship regatta was one of the premier sporting events in the United States. The regatta, contested on the Hudson River at Poughkeepsie, brought together crews from both coasts and was one of the first truly nationwide sporting contests. Attendance at the event often topped one hundred thousand, while radio audiences in the millions tuned in each June. National interest, …
Spotlight
Journal Article Spotlight Get access Dir. by Tom McCarthy Prod. by Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer. Open Road Films, 2015. 128 mins. (http://spotlightthefilm.com/) Journal of American History, Volume 103, Issue 1, June 2016, Pages 293–294, https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jaw167 Published: 01 June 2016
A Fragile Trust: Plagiarism, Power, and Jayson Blair at the New York Times
Journal Article A Fragile Trust: Plagiarism, Power, and Jayson Blair at the New York Times Get access Dir. and prod. by Samantha Grant. Bullfrog Films, 2014. 75 mins. (http://www.bullfrogfilms.com) Journal of American History, Volume 102, Issue 1, June 2015, Pages 328–329, https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jav281 Published: 01 June 2015
The Listener’s Voice: Early radio and the American public
A Profitable Public Sphere: The Creation of the New York Times Op-Ed Page
This study utilizes archival and other primary materials to describe the development of the New York Times op-ed page. This innovative forum for commentary, which premiered in September 1970, is examined through the lenses of Jürgen Habermas' public sphere theory and economic concerns in the American newspaper industry. The page provided a significant source of revenue and diversified social, cultural, and political news analysis. Times executive…
We should make money on our news: The problem of profitability in network broadcast journalism history
The US broadcast networks have traditionally argued that their news divisions were unprofitable. The networks used their news divisions to secure regulatory advantages by claiming that losses incurred in producing broadcast journalism proved a commitment to operating in the public interest. Network broadcast journalism was promoted as a singular genre, resistant to the economic imperative found elsewhere in American broadcasting. This article exp…
A Wavelength for Every Network: Synchronous Broadcasting and National Radio in the United States, 1926-1932
A Wavelength for Every Network:Synchronous Broadcasting and National Radio in the United States, 1926–1932 Michael J. Socolow (bio) Today he is remembered as the "father of Silicon Valley." 1 But before he introduced David Packard to William Hewlett and before being named provost of Stanford University, Frederick Terman was a prodigy in the field of radio engineering. On 20 March 1929, the twenty-eight-year-old Stanford University engineering pro…
Psyche and society: Radio advertising and social psychology in America, 1923-1936
(2004). Psyche and society: Radio advertising and social psychology in America, 1923-1936. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television: Vol. 24, No. 4, pp. 517-534
A Profitable Public Sphere: The Creation of the New York Times Op-Ed Page
This study utilizes archival and other primary materials to describe the development of the New York Times op-ed page. This innovative forum for commentary, which premiered in September 1970, is examined through the lenses of Jürgen Habermas' public sphere theory and economic concerns in the American newspaper industry. The page provided a significant source of revenue and diversified social, cultural, and political news analysis. Times executive…
We should make money on our news: The problem of profitability in network broadcast journalism history
The US broadcast networks have traditionally argued that their news divisions were unprofitable. The networks used their news divisions to secure regulatory advantages by claiming that losses incurred in producing broadcast journalism proved a commitment to operating in the public interest. Network broadcast journalism was promoted as a singular genre, resistant to the economic imperative found elsewhere in American broadcasting. This article exp…
Psyche and society: Radio advertising and social psychology in America, 1923-1936
(2004). Psyche and society: Radio advertising and social psychology in America, 1923-1936. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television: Vol. 24, No. 4, pp. 517-534
A Wavelength for Every Network: Synchronous Broadcasting and National Radio in the United States, 1926-1932
A Wavelength for Every Network:Synchronous Broadcasting and National Radio in the United States, 1926–1932 Michael J. Socolow (bio) Today he is remembered as the "father of Silicon Valley." 1 But before he introduced David Packard to William Hewlett and before being named provost of Stanford University, Frederick Terman was a prodigy in the field of radio engineering. On 20 March 1929, the twenty-eight-year-old Stanford University engineering pro…
A Profitable Public Sphere: The Creation of the New York Times Op-Ed Page
This study utilizes archival and other primary materials to describe the development of the New York Times op-ed page. This innovative forum for commentary, which premiered in September 1970, is examined through the lenses of Jürgen Habermas' public sphere theory and economic concerns in the American newspaper industry. The page provided a significant source of revenue and diversified social, cultural, and political news analysis. Times executive…
We should make money on our news: The problem of profitability in network broadcast journalism history
The US broadcast networks have traditionally argued that their news divisions were unprofitable. The networks used their news divisions to secure regulatory advantages by claiming that losses incurred in producing broadcast journalism proved a commitment to operating in the public interest. Network broadcast journalism was promoted as a singular genre, resistant to the economic imperative found elsewhere in American broadcasting. This article exp…
The Listener’s Voice: Early radio and the American public
A Fragile Trust: Plagiarism, Power, and Jayson Blair at the New York Times
Journal Article A Fragile Trust: Plagiarism, Power, and Jayson Blair at the New York Times Get access Dir. and prod. by Samantha Grant. Bullfrog Films, 2014. 75 mins. (http://www.bullfrogfilms.com) Journal of American History, Volume 102, Issue 1, June 2015, Pages 328–329, https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jav281 Published: 01 June 2015
Six Minutes in Berlin: Broadcast Spectacle and Rowing Gold at the Nazi Olympics
The Berlin Olympics, August 14, 1936. German rowers, dominant at the Games, line up against America's top eight-oared crew. Hundreds of millions of listeners worldwide wait by their radios. Leni Riefenstahl prepares her cameramen. Grantland Rice looks past the 75,000 spectators crowding the riverbank. Above it all, the Nazi leadership, flush with the propaganda triumph the Olympics have given their New Germany, await a crowning victory they can b…
Live from “America’s Rhineland”: The Poughkeepsie Regatta and Early American Network Sports Broadcasting, 1925–1940
Between 1925 and 1940, the Intercollegiate Rowing Association’s annual championship regatta was one of the premier sporting events in the United States. The regatta, contested on the Hudson River at Poughkeepsie, brought together crews from both coasts and was one of the first truly nationwide sporting contests. Attendance at the event often topped one hundred thousand, while radio audiences in the millions tuned in each June. National interest, …
Spotlight
Journal Article Spotlight Get access Dir. by Tom McCarthy Prod. by Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer. Open Road Films, 2015. 128 mins. (http://spotlightthefilm.com/) Journal of American History, Volume 103, Issue 1, June 2016, Pages 293–294, https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jaw167 Published: 01 June 2016
Rolling Stone: Stories from the Edge
Over the course of almost four hours, this two-part documentary chronicles the history of one of the twentieth-century's most influential magazines. Rolling Stone, first published in San Francisco in 1967, began as a periodical dedicated to rock-and-roll music and youth culture. From its inception, Rolling Stone was propelled by the vision of its founding editor and publisher, Jann Wenner. Like such historic American journalists as James Gordon B…
Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes
He was a paranoiac, a misogynistic bully, and an evil man. He was also obese, objectively unattractive, and he obtained sadistic delight in ruining the careers of women who rejected his slimy advances. Yet he also revolutionized American television production and forever altered the political economy of the media in the United States. That Roger Ailes behaved abhorrently with coworkers throughout his career is undeniable. Divide and Conquer is a …
Radio’s Waves of History: Media Activism and National Radio Network Historiography in the United States
The publication of U.S. radio network history began less than five years after the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) inaugurated national service. This descriptive analysis of U.S. radio network historiography periodizes the emergence of four waves of radio network history between 1930 and 2020, and illustrates how social, political, and regulatory activism influenced the emergence of new perspectives on t…
Mike Wallace Is Here
Mike Wallace Is Here documents the life and career of the legendary American broadcaster Mike Wallace. The film interweaves clips from Wallace's most famous interviews with personal remembrances, commentary, and archival materials to produce a detailed and incisive portrayal of American television's most effective interrogator. Television stardom, in the United States, has proven ephemeral. Once-famous television celebrities such as Ed Sullivan, …
“Comparing Australian, British, Canadian, and U.S. Broadcasting: The 1934 Radio Reports Compiled by Australian Broadcasting Commissioner E.M.R. Couchman”
In 1934, Australian Broadcasting Commissioner E.M.R. Couchman traveled to North America and Europe. While visiting Canada, the United States, and Great Britain, Couchman met with radio executives to research and compile analyses of each nation’s broadcasting development. Her final reports offer valuable snapshots of early network radio in national broadcasting’s formative era, yet they remain largely uncited in the historiography of radio. This a…
Australians are the Greatest Sport Loving People in the World’: Sport Broadcasting’s Role in the Development of National Radio in Australia, 1925–1935
Sport programming played a vital and catalytic role in the development of national relay and network broadcasting in the first decade of Australian radio. Sport programmes sold radio apparatuses, attracted listeners willing to pay for licenses, and provided live entertainment drawing large and appreciative audiences to radio relays throughout the nation. They also propagated a unifying ideal of Australian nationalism while helping develop a truly…
Walter Winchell: The Power of Gossip
Walter Winchell was, without question, one of the most influential journalists in U.S. history. His legacy informs, and even structures, our contemporary media environment. Yet he is almost entirely forgotten. That fact attests to both the ephemerality of celebrity in the broadcast age and to widespread ignorance about the origins of our current media ecosystem. Walter Winchell: The Power of Gossip, an episode in Pbs's American Masters series, re…
Citizen Hearst: An American Experience Special
William Randolph Hearst remains a legendary figure in American history. Shrouded in myth, with popular understanding of his life distorted by a classic Hollywood film, the actual human named William Randolph Hearst continues to be elusive. Thus, any documentary purporting to accurately profile Hearst, and the world he influenced, faces daunting obstacles. Not only must it debunk self-serving myths that Hearst himself cultivated but it also must c…
Taken Hostage
Journal Article Taken Hostage Get access Taken Hostage. Dir. by Robert Stone. Prod. by Robert Stone, Nariman Hamed, and Cameo George. Robert Stone Productions Film for American Experience, Pbs, 2021. 226 mins. (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/taken-hostage/) Michael J Socolow Michael J Socolow University of Maine, Orono, Maine Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, V…
Radical Wolfe
Journal Article Radical Wolfe Get access Radical Wolfe. Dir. by Richard Dewey. Prod. by Richard Dewey, Andy Fortenbacher, and Chris Laszlo. Kino Lorber, 2023. 76 mins. (https://kinolorber.com/film/radical-wolfe) Michael J Socolow Michael J Socolow University of Maine, Orono, Maine Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 111, Issue 1, June 2024, Pages 205–206, https://doi.org/10.…
The Missouri Model of Radio Preservation
A pioneering statewide effort to collect, digitize, and preserve local commercial radio station recordings in Missouri constitutes a singular and valuable model of collaboration and cooperation among multiple organizations. Under the direction of veteran broadcaster Frank Absher, who founded the St. Louis Media History Foundation, the “Missouri model” of radio preservation has resulted in numerous airchecks, commercials, and other historical audi…
Lawyers, Los Angeles, and Le Show
In 1994 and 1995, the O. J. Simpson double-murder trial was ubiquitous in American culture. Over the span of approximately 15 months, it became the focus of American news reporting, comedy shows, and radio and television talk programs. This article examines the remembered experience of one broadcast journalist, a CNN assignment editor in the Los Angeles bureau covering the Simpson case, and his listenership to one specific program, Harry Shearer’…
September 5
Cover-Up
Media studies (14 works) · Political science (14 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · History (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Art (8 works) · History (7 works) · Politics (6 works)