February 14, 1995

Professor Ted Pease, head of the Department of Communication at Utah State University, has just published a book on "Radio:The Forgotten Medium." The book, released this week by Transaction Publishers of New Brunswick, NJ, is an edited compilation of essays by 23 authors, communications scholars, talk show hosts, industry and political leaders who explore where radio fits in the modern electronic communication age.

"Radio may seem like a technology whose time has come and gone," Pease and his co-editor, Everette Dennis, write in the preface. "Once king of the electronic media, radio has been pushed farther and farther into the background of the media family photo. But, in truth, radio is still much more than a bit player or aging maiden aunt." In essays on radio's historical importance, continuing economic vitality and broad reach, "Radio:The Forgotten Medium" offers evidence that this most ubiquitous medium is not only far from dead, but thriving in the Information Age.

As Pease and Dennis point out, there are 5.6 radios for every American home, and 96 percent of U.S. adults listen to three hours of radio or more every day. And with the huge new popularity of talk radio; from Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern to Larry King and the many others, radio has more political and cultural clout in 1995 than it ever has.

The book is an expanded version of an edition of the "Media Studies Journal" published by the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia University in New York. Pease was associate director of the Center and editor of the Journal when the first publication was released. Dennis is the Center's executive director and the Journal's editor-in-chief.

"Every indication we see; economic, demographic, social and democratic, suggests that, far from fading into the ether, radio is moving back into our consciousness and into the mainstream," Pease and Dennis write. "We hope that with this volume we can reassure radio aficionados that neither they nor their medium are forgotten."

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