The following are the responses sent to the questioner.
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We are currently working on this, but are not finding much more than very general books and articles on the history and sociology of TV and other media - including discussions that draw parallels between the 1950's scandals and current media controversies.
Most public libraries will have access to the Masterfile Premier database (Ebsco) which has some full text online. You would need to go in person, or get access by entering a library card number on their databases access page. Masterfile gets 48 hits for the search: quiz* and show* and scandal*
You will have a better chance at an academic library - especially at a large college or university. The Academic Search Premier database (Ebsco) gets 35 hits on that search: quiz* and show* and scandal*, and Communications and Mass Media Complete (also Ebsco) gets 16 hits. About a third of these hits are full text. In America: History and Life, the keyword search: quiz scandal* gets 9 hits and the subject search: quiz scandal* gets 5 hits. But very few of these have full text online - you would need to then look up the journals in the university's library catalogs, and no doubt do interlibrary loan for some of them.
I suspect much of this type of radical criticism is well hidden inside books that would be cataloged under the headings of capitalism, corporations -- social aspects, etc. A couple of possible dissertations, from the Worldcat database, are:
for the search: television dialectic
Title: A series of original critical essays utilizing Robert L. Shayon's dialectical approach to radio and television criticism /Author(s): Pearson, Charles Joseph. Year: 1973
Description: iii, 93 leaves ; 29 cm.Language: English SUBJECT(S) Descriptor: Television criticism.
Radio criticism. Named Person: Shayon, Robert Lewis, 1912- Note(s): Typescript./ Includes bibliographical references (leaves 91-93)./ Dissertation: Thesis (M.A.)--San Francisco State College. Class Descriptors: LC: AS36 1973 Responsibility: by Charles J. Pearson. Material Type: Thesis/dissertation (deg); Manuscript (mss) Document Type: Book; Archival Material Entry: 19800509 Update: 20020708 Accession No: OCLC: 6299547 Database: WorldCat
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for the search: quiz shows capitalism
Title: Power play an ideological analysis of daytime game shows / Author(s): Kaiser, Stephanie. Year: 1992 Description: iii, 147 leaves ; 29 cm. Language: English SUBJECT(S) Descriptor: Game shows.
Television programs. Quiz shows. Capitalism -- United States. Propaganda, Capitalistic -- United States.
Materialism -- United States. Note(s): Typescript./ Spine title: Power play, an ideological analysis of game shows./ Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-147)./ Dissertation: Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1992. Class Descriptors: LC: PN4121.X1992 Other Titles: Power play, an ideological analysis of game shows. Responsibility: by Stephanie Kaiser. Material Type: Thesis/dissertation (deg); Manuscript (mss) Document Type: Book; Archival Material Entry: 19950123 Update: 20041230 Accession No: OCLC: 31870718 Database: WorldCat
The Proquest Dissertations database may have some leads - if for nothing else, to get some large bibliographies at the end of dissertations (Once again, only interlibrary loan will get these into your hands however). Possible searches got the following hits:
for the search: quiz show* and radical*
Music wars: Conflict and accommodation in America's culture industry, 1940-1960
by Hajduk, John Charles, Ph.D., State University of New York at Buffalo, 1995, 567 pages; AAT 9525561
for the search: quiz show* and capital*
A scandalous genre: A cultural history of quiz shows in American broadcasting
by Hoerschelmann, Olaf, Ph.D., Indiana University, 1997, 203 pages; AAT 9825450
Music wars: Conflict and accommodation in America's culture industry, 1940-1960
by Hajduk, John Charles, Ph.D., State University of New York at Buffalo, 1995, 567 pages; AAT 9525561
for the search: quiz show* and corporation*
Defining the free world: Prime-time documentary and the politics of the Cold War, 1960-1964
by Curtin, Michael Joseph, Ph.D., The University of Wisconsin - Madison, 1990, 337 pages; AAT 9106671
Finally, I should note that we cannot send full text or even lists of hits because of our VERY strict license agreements with the database producers - you will need to be either on-site, or coming into a database using your own library's login page.
A fellow librarian is also working on this question, and I will let you know what he found tomorrow (7/7/05)
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Your question is quite interesting. One could certainly make the case that the 1950s quiz show scandals provided an important impetus for regulation of commercial media. In particular, the involvement of sponsors in the rigging practices highlighted the inherent dangers of commercial mass media and ultimately led to calls for the abolition of sponsor-controlled programming. The critical awareness generated by the scandals motivated the FCC’s 1960 amendments to the Communications Act as well as the broadcasting industry’s own regulatory measures to curb sponsor influence on programming content. Furthermore, some critics sought to eliminate commercial influence altogether in their advocacy of what eventually became the public broadcasting system.
Finding clear evidence, however, of left-wing activism in reaction to the scandals has been difficult. This is in part due to the fact that I don’t have much access to radical publications dating back to the 1950s – ‘60s. The online version of Alternative Press Index, which is the best resource for radical publications immediately available to me, only goes back as far as 1991 (the print version goes back to 1969). If possible, you might want to have a look at the indexes for journals like Partisan Review, Dissent, and Commentary. However, my guess is that there was much more discussion of this issue in the popular press. I’d recommend searching historical newspapers and magazines via databases like Periodicals Contents Index, American Periodicals Series (ProQuest), or New York Times Historical (1851 - 2001) – that is, if you have access to them. The Museum of Broadcast Communications has a page devoted to journalistic criticism of television which names major journalists in early TV criticism: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/T/htmlT/televisioncr/televisioncr.htm
You might want to plug these names into some author searches to locate some of their work. You should also run some keyword searches such as:
"quiz show*" AND scandal
"quiz show*" AND payola
"quiz show*" AND advertis*
"quiz show*" AND sponsor*
"quiz show*" AND regulation
"quiz show*" AND "industry standards"
(NOTE: * is a truncation symbol used to retrieve all derivations of a stem. Thus, for example, advertis* retrieves advertising, advertisers, advertisement, etc. Quotation marks "" are used for phrase searching, i.e. locating adjacent terms.)
For the most part, I think you’ll need to do some in-depth reading and draw many of your own connections. If you haven’t already but would like to establish a theoretical background on leftist critiques of capitalist media and culture you might want to examine the following:
- Marxist and neo-Marxist perspectives on culture and the mass media. In particular, Marx's notion of ideology as expressed as 'base and superstructure' and Antonio Gramsci's ideas about 'hegemony.'
See:
Marx, Karl. The German Ideology. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1968.
Gramsci, Antonio. Prison Notebooks. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992.
- The notion of the 'culture industry', associated with Theodor Adorno and the Frankfurt School
See:
Adorno, Theodor W. The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture. London: Routledge, 2001.
Horkheimer, Max; Adorno, Theodor W. Dialectic of Enlightenment. New York: Continuum, 1995.
- Contemporary research on media production (i.e., the political economy critiques of Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman) and consumption (i.e., reception theories advanced by Stuart Hall and the Birmingham school of cultural studies).
See:
Herman, Edward S.; Chomsky, Noam. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988.
Chen, Kuan-Hsing (ed). Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies. London: Routledge, 1996.
