Radio Nation: Communication, Popular Culture, and Nationalism in Mexico, 1920-1950'

H-LatAm Hijar on Hayes, 'Radio Nation: Communication, Popular Culture, and Nationalism in Mexico, 1920-1950'

Review published on Tuesday, March 16, 2021

Joy Elizabeth Hayes. Radio Nation: Communication, Popular Culture, and Nationalism in Mexico, 1920-1950. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2020. xx + 154 pp. $26.95 (paper),ISBN

978-0-8165-4158-4.

Reviewed by Andres Hijar (Georgia Gwinnett College)Published on H-LatAm (March, 2021) Commissioned by Casey M. Lurtz (Johns Hopkins University)

Printable Version: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=55861

The influence of radio in postrevolutionary Mexico “has been both [an] underestimated and understudied” topic when it comes to understanding state formation as undertaken by elites in postrevolutionary Mexico (p. xiii). How did President Lázaro Cárdenas garner popular support and reach the Mexican masses? How did Mexico afford the technology required to establish mass media without compromising national sovereignty? Joy Elizabeth Hayes answers these questions in her examination of revolutionary elites’ efforts to construct a stable political regime through the airwaves.

Hayes’s overarching argument asserts that the US government and corporations intervened in Mexican mass media from its inception, as establishing radio broadcast stations with the capacity to reach a large audience required significant investment and technology. Hayes highlights the continuous challenges the radio industry faced in its attempts to reach the Mexican masses, challenges that made Americans and their technologies indispensable. However, despite American control, Mexicans carved an important place in the mass media industry and drew on Mexican elites’ conservative background to control and dictate the content of radio programs. Hayes points to Emilio Azcarraga’s media and radio dynasty, the promotions of content depicting nationalist themes on radio, and the postrevolutionary regime’s ability to regulate mass media as evidence that the American presence on Mexican radio constituted expansionism instead of imperialism.

Hayes’s focus on expansionism versus imperialism does not allow for a further discussion regarding the repercussions of American control. Because she does avoid the implications of this distinction, her discussion of US influence in Mexico is limited to technology and propaganda. An alternate reading of the same sources would perhaps point to a different conclusion, especially because the actions undertaken by mass media companies, first radio and later television, affected the majority of Mexicans and benefited most Americans in general terms. Thus, radio would be better understood through the lens of imperialism as Mexican mass media served the interests of a handful of wealthy and connected individuals directly linked to American interests. The repercussions were multifold. One can simply point to the news coverage of the students’ massacre of 1968, the Acteal killings, the alleged electoral frauds of 1988 and 2006, the billionaire rescue of wealthy elites with public money during the Zedillo regime that included American interests, the entrance of American capital in oil

Chapter 1 traces the origins of radio in Mexico to theTeatro the Revista (temporary popular plays performed under tents) and newspapers. Radio’s ability to extract popular elements from these two long-standing forms of entertainment, like the use of music and the connection between the press and their audience through personals and stories, made radio instantaneously popular among Mexicans. With these combined elements, Hayes argues that radio continued the public’s long-standing tradition of attending public plays. As a result, radio seamlessly overtook and subsumed these two popular forms of entertainment. However, Hayes explains that radio’s origins in popular culture did not mean that the content on the airwaves challenged the narrative set forth by the regime, as the Teatro often did. In fact, elites directed the distribution of noncontroversial content for radio, such as music and official speeches. Hayes does not mention actors, such as Mario Moreno (Cantinflas), German Valdez (Tin-Tan), Jesus Martinez (Palillo), and others who had to adjust to the radio and its censors, which inevitably deradicalized their work. This argument about the increasing homogeneity of popular content would have benefited from Hayes presenting specific examples that would have made the narrative come alive.

In chapter 2, Hayes defines the nation as an elite project and argues that the nation is an anti-modern construct, disguised by long-standing political and economic interests as a modern entity exalting individualism and an emphasis on the future. Hayes argues that the nation is rooted in past kinships and religious interests, with the goal of expanding, justifying, and cementing elites’ interests. In Mexico, the radio and other forms of mass media allowed these emergent powers to expand their influence through projection and repetition. In other words, the nation could not exist without mass media because mass media reached, expanded, shaped, and directed the narrative and meaning of the nation. This does not mean dominant ideas went unchallenged, especially when it came to issues regarding the essence of Mexicanness, or the meaning of the revolution, but Hayes’s discussion on these counter-narratives is sparse.

Chapter 3 examines the American presence in Mexican radio. As previously mentioned, lack of capital and technology prevented Mexicans from establishing a mass media industry without American involvement. American impetus in Latin American mass media included promoting and exalting the idea of a free-market system on the radio in order to counteract the emergence of socialists and communists or to garner support against the Axis powers. That said, American laissez-faire attitudes toward the industry at home and abroad allowed Mexicans to carve a place on the airwaves through regulations, marriages, and political alliances without American objection. These connections facilitated a small number of entrepreneurs and political elites with conservative inclinations, led by Azcarraga, to monopolize the industry in Mexico for fifty years, first with radio and later with television.

Chapter 4 argues that the revolutionary regime used radio to advance the postrevolutionary elites’ processes of state formation despite most Mexicans not owning a radio. Hayes points out that most listeners resided in Mexico City. She also describes how Mexicans came together as a community to listen to the radio and highlights efforts by the state to distribute radios among the masses. The author’s discussion of music’s role in radio is fascinating. She talks about the challenges in defining popular music. She points out how biased bureaucrats’ definitions of “original” were in fact efforts to

Citation: H-Net Reviews. Hijar on Hayes, 'Radio Nation: Communication, Popular Culture, and Nationalism in Mexico, 1920-1950'. H- LatAm. 03-16-2021. https://networks.h-net.org/node/23910/reviews/7435038/hijar-hayes-radio-nation-communication-popular-culture-and Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 2 H-LatAm sanitize its popular elements, especially indigenous ones. As a result, a mixed type of music emerged that combined native and European elements. Hayes argues that the regime and mass media established rancheras and baladas with clear European origins as the essence of Mexicanness in an attempt to water down other forms of music, especially regional styles that might hold popular grievances and better represent the majority of Mexicans, such as folk music, also knows as the Son in certain areas. The Europeanization of Mexican music also underscored the postrevolutionary regime’s need to define a political and economic system based on undermining native culture and diversity.

The last two chapters further examine government intrusion on the airwaves, including the mandated hora nacional, in which the state broadcasted nationally on Sundays for an hour on all radio stations. Perhaps more notably, the final two chapters analyze Azcarraga’s cooperation with the United States during World II. Azcarragas’s ability to remain essential by offering Americans a trusted partner helps to explain his eventual control of the mass media industry. This study portrays Azcarraga as a shrewd capitalist, who effectively balanced American and nationalist interests to capture the imagination of the Mexican masses with his safe and unchallenging content. The portrayal of Azcarraga fails to place into context the consequences of having a man working with and under the influence of the US government, controlling a crucial aspect of daily Mexican life.

Radio Nation effectively examines state formation, radio, the Cárdenas regime, mass media, Azcarraga, nationalism, imperialism, expansionism, Mexicanness, and other crucial themes in Mexican history. Scholars and students interested in any of the aforementioned themes will find this study useful in understanding postrevolutionary Mexican history.

Citation: Andres Hijar. Review of Hayes, Joy Elizabeth,Radio Nation: Communication, Popular Culture, and Nationalism in Mexico, 1920-1950. H-LatAm, H-Net Reviews. March, 2021.URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55861

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.