Redeeming the Dial - Book Review

In the fast-paced world of early twenty-first century society, instantaneous access to information and popular culture is not a luxury. Rather, it is an assumed fact of life, made possible by the world of satellites, telecommunication, and high-speed Internet. With a nearly universal access to these sophisticated forms of communication, today the radio may seem as primitive and “low-tech” as the wheel. To step into the world of early radio broadcasting is to travel into a foreign land. In Redeeming the Dial: Radio, Religion, and Popular Culture in America, Tona J. Hangen embarks on this journey, endeavoring to tell the tale of conservative Protestant radio’s development in the United States. Her work reveals a world in which radio was on the cutting edge of technology. Far from a primitive, outdated mode of communication, the radio was a powerful, culture-changing device that attracted listeners from across the country. With the potential for gaining large audiences, religious institutions naturally wanted to participate in broadcasting. The story of their triumphs and struggles in radio is the subject of Redeeming the Dial.

In her own words, Hangen strives to “portray revivalistic radio and its listeners as embedded in a rich and rapidly changing culture--illuminating their strategy of trying to provide stability and certainty as itself a product of the age in which conservative Protestant radio began to flourish” (p. 15). Her method for accomplishing this feat includes two steps, the first of which is to study the narratives that arose out mass media. While essential, Hangen contends that this first step is only minimally effective without the other. Step two is “to explore the agency exercised by the audience for religious radio and the social frameworks in which listeners ‘read’ radio as a cultural text” (4). This task entails the use of several types of sources, including “traditional organizational, biographical, and rhetorical evidence,” as well as “listener correspondence,” in order to create a “multidimensional analysis” (4).

Hangen takes a diverse approach in this analysis, as she divides the book into six chapters, following the introduction. Each chapter is relatively brief, usually not exceeding twenty pages in length. Hangen attempts to compensate for this brevity with depth. Three of her chapters are biographical, illustrating the lives of influential religious broadcasters in the first half of the twentieth century. In chapter two Hangen explores the career of Paul Rader, a successful preacher who founded “the first regular fundamentalist radio program in Chicago—heard during daylight hours from Massachusetts to the Rocky Mountains” (45). In chapter three, Hangen discusses the colorful life and ministry of Aimee Semple McPherson, a polarizing figure in religious radio who foreshadowed the celebrity/preacher prototype that would later emerge with the rise of religious television. Chapter four is dedicated to the life of Charles Fuller, whose broadcast, Old Fashioned Radio Revival Hour would become the most successful religious program in the first half of the twentieth century. The second and fifth chapters explore the ways and means in which religious programming gained access and influence in the realm of radio, often through bitter struggles with the major networks. Hangen reveals a world in which radio networks were hesitant to include fundamentalist and evangelical broadcasts in their regular programming, due to their exclusive and divisive messages. As a result, conservative Protestants united (quite the rarity), and clawed their way into broadcasting prominence. In the final chapter, Hangen examines the manner in which religious radio reached new heights in popularity in the years following World War II. This multifaceted chapter structure proves to be a double-edged sword, as Redeeming the Dial is, both, an engaging and confusing work.

There is much to commend in Redeeming the Dial. Hangen is a gifted writer, whose captivating prose keeps the reader immersed in the world of twentieth-century religious radio. Her chapters begin with brief vignettes that place the subject matter in context, while also hooking the reader’s attention. Her description of Aimee Semple McPherson’s dramatic life is one of the highlights of the book, not only for its entertainment value, but also for its depth of research and immediate significance for the wider literature of religious radio. Perhaps the book’s greatest strength is that it serves as an ideal introduction to American religious radio history. Hangen covers more than four decades of material without sacrificing the personal element of her subject matter. If a student or researcher were only allowed to read one book on conservative Protestant radio, he or she would gain a respectable grasp on the some of the major themes and personalities that characterize this topic.

Yet, Redeeming the Dial also has several shortcomings. First, this book lacks unity of content. While the individual chapters are engaging and well-researched, one is not always sure how they connect. For example, the three biographical chapters comprise nearly half of the book, yet Hangen fails to weave Rader, McPherson, and Fuller into the same overarching narrative. Rather than comparing and contrasting the roles and significance of these figures in the development of religious radio, she simply treats them as isolated components working independently of one another. Second, Hangen is too selective in her material. She devotes entire chapters to the careers of Paul Rader, Aimee Semple McPherson, and Charles Fuller, but leaves out other important figures, such as Leighton Ford, and Harold John Ockenga (who is only mentioned in relation to Fuller). Billy Graham was one of the most significant figures in Protestant radio, yet Hangen does not include a biographical chapter about him, although he does appear frequently in the final section. Finally, Redeeming the Dial ends too abruptly. While Hangen provides a helpful introduction, she fails to include an epilogue and/or conclusion. Her concluding remarks are far too brief and she segues into them awkwardly, at the end of chapter six. A strong conclusion could have brought unity to Redeeming the Dial’s odd structure, and in a book of only 158 pages (not including notes), it is surprising that Hangen simply left it out.

Yet, for all of its shortcomings, Redeeming the Dial is well-worth reading. I would especially recommend this book to researchers and students with little background in the history of conservative Protestant radio. Hangen provides a valuable contribution to an under-researched topic in American history that will, hopefully, encourage further scholarship.