Educating tomorrow’s media workers: television instruction at American institutions of higher learning, 1945–1960

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the rise of programs in television instruction in the USA during broadcasting’s postwar expansion period. Beginning in professional schools, television training entered the university first through extension school courses, then in full degree programs. This transition to institutions of higher learning entailed key shifts in demographics, pedagogical orientation, and legitimation strategies, while embroiling television in larger struggles over the shifting boundaries of the postwar humanities. Studying the education of early television workers, I argue, raises key questions about processes of worker professionalization vital for developing research on media industries and media labor.

KEYWORDS:

• Television
• education
• media labor
• media industries
• humanities

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Michael Henry at the University of Maryland's Hornbake Library and Dina Kellams at Indiana University's Archives and Records Management Office for assistance with their collections.