Plays

To gain insight into how critical standards for broadcast drama evolved with time, this paper examines the critical response to the development of broadcast drama in the first two decades of radio (1920-1940), as reported in the periodical press. The paper is based on two underlying assumptions: (1) that the stories a society tells are indicative of that society's character and, therefore, worthy of examination; and (2) that criticism is worthy of consideration because it is part of the negotiation process that creates the broadcast stories and storytelling techniques. The sources examined included general circulation and specialty magazines, but excluded daily newspapers. The paper reports that, after radio's first decade, specialized publications, such as "Broadcasting " and "Billboard, " began to pay serious business-oriented attention to radio, in addition to the radio dram