Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, 6th edition
Ralph Hanson
Lecture Builders
Chapter 7
Lecture Builders
A Look Back at the 1970s Punk Scene
A great collection of photos by David Godlis from the punk scene in New York from the 1970s,
including images of the Ramones, Talking Heads, and Blondie.
• http://time.com/4447310/a-nostalgic-look-back-at-new-yorks-1970s-punk-rock-scene/
Photo Galleries from Rolling Stone
Here’s a link to the latest photo galleries from Rolling Stone magazine on the current (and historic)
music scene.
• http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures
The Problem of Payola
With radio airplay so important to the success of records in the pre-MTV and pre-Internet era,
record promoters were willing to do almost anything to get their records played on the major radio
stations. This included payoffs to disc jockeys in the form of money or gifts, known as payola, to get
them to play a particular record. In 1959, this common practice gained notoriety when an internal fight
between the two major music-licensing companies went public. The fight was between the old guard of
the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), which represented the older Tin
Pan Alley style of music, and Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), which represented rock ‘n’ roll, R&B, and
country artists and composers.
On November 21, 1959, early rock ‘n’ roll disc jockey Alan Freed was fired from radio station
WABC for refusing to sign a statement that he had never been paid to play a record. Freed, along with
Dick Clark and other prominent disc jockeys, was called to testify at congressional hearings on the
payola scandal. Freed had taken a variety of payments, including cash, gifts, and even publishing credits,
in return for playing particular records, and he viewed this practice as acceptable. Giving in to the
demands of the ABC network that carried his American Bandstand, Clark gave up all his connections to
the music publishing business to concentrate on his music shows, but Freed never recovered from the
scandal and died from complications of alcoholism in 1965.
1
Concerns about payola in various forms have resurfaced over the years, most recently in 2004
when major record companies were accused of attempting to keep music by independent artists off the
air in favor of their own performers by making payments to stations owned by major media companies.
2
1
Miller, Flowers in the Dustbin.
2
Brooks Boliek, “FCC Proposal Could Halt Payola Probe,” Mediaweek, January 11, 2007.
Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, 6th edition
Ralph Hanson
Lecture Builders
NOTES: RADIO STORYTELLING NOTES―NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: William Buzenberg, the former head
of National Public Radio news, makes the point in an article for Nieman Reports, that part of what makes
radio so companionable is that it is like someone telling you a story, which is our oldest form of
communication:
“Storytelling is very ancient. That’s how things were passed on. They weren’t read, they were told to
you. Radio is telling your stories and those things stick with you. It doesn’t go through your eyes. . . With
radio, you get the information because you’re getting storytelling or sounds that your brain can
remember. You could play a tape recording of a train going past and you could close your eyes and you
can see this huge locomotive. And with stereo you could feel it going through the room. You would feel
like it has. That would mean something to you. But seeing it going through on television wouldn’t.
Reading about a train wouldn’t. The radio would. On radio the train is as big as a real train in your mind.
It’s full size.”
VIDEO HINTS: Journalist John Hockenberry did a one-hour interview with C-SPAN to promote his book
Moving Violations. A video of the Booknotes program is also available for purchase through C-SPAN. You
can read a transcript of Hockenberry’s Booknotes interview at
https://www.c-span.org/video/?66079-1/moving-violations-memoir
In addition to providing a fascinating look at the world of radio news, the Hockenberry interview
also gives an excellent look at diversity in the media business. Students often see diversity as being
exclusively a question of race. Hockenberry deals candidly with how being confined to a wheelchair has
affected his life. Hockenberry spent much of his career with National Public Radio as a Middle East
correspondent, and he has a number of fascinating stories about working in both Jerusalem and the
Kurdish areas of Iraq in his book Moving Violations. A video of the interview is available from C-
SPAN.org.
The opening sequence of Oliver Stone’s movie Talk Radio makes a good introduction to the
topic of confrontational talk radio. The film is a fictionalized version of the murder of controversial
Denver talk show host Alan Berg. Do be forewarned that the opening sequence does carry some mildly
offensive language.
NOTES: RECORDED MUSIC―AUTHORITATIVE VERSIONS: Music historian Eric Salzman writes that
recorded music tends to create the notion that there is a single way music is supposed to be performed.
Music is no longer something to be written down and then interpreted; there is a right way to do it.
People at concerts will complain because a popular artist gives a new interpretation to his or her hit
song. “Why doesn’t it sound like it does on the record?” fans ask.
