The Loudspeaker and the Little Man
Mass Media and Democratic Participation in the Federal Theatre Project’s One-Third of a Nation
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22248644 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jordana Cox (University of Waterloo, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 121-147 |
| Publication date | 2020-05-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal for the History of Rhetoric (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2687-8003 • E-ISSN: 2687-8011 |
| Publisher | The Pennsylvania State University Press (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1080/26878003.2020.1757533 |
| OpenAlex | W3045802683 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 20 |
In a 1938 hearing with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), director Hallie Flanagan claimed that the U.S. Federal Theatre Project (FTP) (1935-9), which she led, disseminated “propaganda for democracy.” In this paper, I explore the possibilities of propaganda for democracy to describe FTP rhetoric. My focus is a body of work that greatly concerned HUAC. Living Newspapers were full-length, documentary plays about hot-button issues. At the New York Living Newspaper Unit (NYLNU), where journalists and theatre-makers worked side-by-side, Living Newspapers wove original reporting into dramatic narratives. Using theatrical conventions, they reimagined democratic communication for a mass society. My case study is the NYLNU’s most popular Living Newspaper. “One-Third of a Nation” was most explicitly about the lack of affordable housing across the U.S. It was also, however, about how to participate in democratic life. More specifically, it was about how to look at, listen to, and speak up about social issues. One-Third of a Nation addressed these themes by way of two recurring characters: a resounding Loudspeaker, and a plucky Little Man who represented the “average” citizen. Their interplay modeled propaganda for democracy as a dynamic relationship between responsive mass media and self-conscious public speech
Acoustics · Advertising · Aesthetics · Art · Business · Democracy · Loudspeaker · Mass media · Media studies · Physics · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Law · Rhetoric and Communication Studies · Theater, Performance, and Music History
Franklin Roosevelt and the Fireside Chats
New Deal Theater
The Averaged American
Jim Crow, Indian Style
The Lyceum and Public Culture in the Nineteenth-Century United States
FDR, the Rhetoric of Vision, and the Creation of a National Synoptic State
Blue Blouse
Plowed Under
The Theatrical Public Sphere
Liberty Censored
Solidarity Blues
Gadamer's Century
Forced Listening
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,2 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2021 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |