Across the Waves: How the United States and France Shaped the International Age of Radio

Abstract

Press pp. xiii þ 239, $29.95 (paper) Derek W. Vaillant's Across the Waves: How the United States and France shaped the International Age of Radio takes on the task of shedding light on the neglected history of transatlantic radio broadcasting between France and the United States. By doing so, it reflects the transnational turn embraced by many broadcasting historians, and it helps further the understanding of international media history, and of Franco-American relations. This book dwells into the complex U.S.-French radio history, and its multitude of cultural, political and technical entanglements, from the early 1930s to 1974, when France dismantled its state media system; a period referred to by the author as 'the international age of radio'. As the author acknowledges himself, he has tried in this book to go beyond the concepts of 'Americanization' and 'remaining French' that have dominated the perception of Franco-American broadcasting and cultural history. Across the Waves analyses the transatlantic developments of radio broadcasting in order to offer a renewed perspective of this intertwined history. It also attempts to deconstruct these two concepts that are described as appealing, but limited to truly encapsulate the situation, especially as they neglect the influence of French broadcasts, and broadcasters, on the United States. This book is written accordingly to a rather traditional, though justified, chronological approach, in order to reflect the evolutions of Franco-American radio history, with a clear cut following the aftermath of World War II.Throughout the chapters, the author regularly changes his lens of inquiry, by dwelling on various aspects of radio history, as he looks at cultural, technical and political (at national and international levels) aspects of the Franco-American 'international age of radio', during peace as well as war times, with a fascinating chapter on the US broadcasts to France during the second World War. Another chapter, a case-study on the 'first weekly transatlantic women's radio talk show' (p. 101), Bonjour Mesdames (Hello, ladies), highlights these changes of lenses particularly well. Vaillant analyses in it the technical and material aspects of this programme, while revealing its cultural impact, especially on questions of gender norms, and bringing it into a larger scale of analysis, by showing how it can be