Media and Mobilization: The Case of Radio and Southern Textile Worker Insurgency, 1929 TO 1934

Abstract

Collective action rests, in part, on group identity and political opportunity. Just how group identity is manifested and perceptions of political opportunity are altered, however, remain unclear, particularly in the case of a geographically dispersed population. An often overlooked mechanism is media technology. This article analyzes an important yet underexamined instance of worker mobilization in the United States: the southern textile strike campaigns of 1929 to 1934 during which more than 400,000 workers walked off their jobs. Using historical data on textile manufacturing concentration and strike activity, FCC data on radio station foundings, and analyses of political content and song lyrics, the authors show that the geographic proximity of radio stations to the “textile belt” and the messages aired shaped workers’ sense of collective experience and political opportunity: Walk-outs and strike spillover across mill towns resulted. The implications of the analyses for social movement theory generally, and for the understanding of how media can enable or constrain collective struggle, are discussed.