Listening, Sound, and the Battle for an Educated Democracy in 20th Century America

Why listening and sound were once important instructional modes in schools, and why they failed to live up to their promise for American democratic education.

A hallmark of modern liberalism is the belief that most political problems can be solved by listening. Before our current distrust and lack of reciprocal communication, teachers and researchers in English and Speech believed that listening was on its way to becoming established as a respected field. Their work—the culmination of more than fifty years of efforts in different disciplines—was motivated by the goal to establish listening and sound in education for democratic change.

In Listening, Sound, and the Battle for an Educated Democracy in 20th-Century America, Brian Gregory draws from music education, advertising, commercial and local radio, English, and Speech to detail the evolution of listening and sound as tools to foster educated democratic citizens. With the dawn of radio broadcasting, a battle ensued over the auditory effects of educational programming that demonstrated competing discourses: the power of entertainment culture on commercial radio versus critical listening and discussion to combat the effects of emotional stimulation with local radio and teachers. This book argues that assumptions and ideologies about listening and sound have continued to impede its effectiveness up to the present.