1950's Media | Overview

The Decade of Television.

The stereotype that labels the 1950s as a sleepy, conformist decade is at no time less true than when discussing the media. The 1950s were revolutionary years in the media. During the decade the technology and content of radio, television, newspapers, magazines, and the movies entered a period of rapid change. In the aftermath of the Great Depression and World War II, the pent-up demand for goods and services and the unexploited supply of new technologies combined to bring a nearly unprecedented wave of radical change to many areas of American life. The rise of television as an entertainment center for the American public was the dominant media trend of the 1950s. Television supplanted radio as the primary source of entertainment, dramatic, comedie, and variety programs; radio by the end of the decade was primarily given only to popular music, news, and sports programming.

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