President Reagan’s firing of the Air Traffic controllers for refusing to return to work, introduced a battle with labor whose echo is still very much a part of our contemporary political discourse.
The Action Speaks! panel of experts look at how this moment was nested into the rise of Free Market Philosophy and how it resonates today in the contemporary conflicts in Ohio, Wisconsin and in many other states and municipalities.

Available: PRX, FTP (email for instructions)

Watch An American Family: Introduction on PBS. See more from THIRTEEN Specials.

In 1970-71 a camera was rolling in the house of an upper middle class Santa Barbara family. What was revealed was not Leave it to Beaver. What was introduced was, well, unreal…or was it?
Available: PRX, FTP (email for instructions)

When Directors Alan and Susan Raymond put their cameras–and us–into the lives of an upper middle class white family from Santa Barbara in 1970-1971, California, the schisms in the American Family became readily apparent. What was revealed was not Leave it to Beaver. What was introduced was, well, unreal…or was it?

With panelists Susan and Alan Raymond, Brown Media Studies Professor Lynne Joyrich and Brown History Professor Robert Self, author of American Babylon, we will look at how TV changed through the popularity of An American Family.

With the current proliferation of ‘Reality TV’ and its ‘reality’ which often seems quite suspect, we will wonder what accounts for its popularity, whether or not An American Family can be seen as its direct ancestor and ask what it might be ‘preparing us for.’

Here is a chance to look more deeply at a subject that sits with us in our living rooms, brought to you by an American Family that allowed us to sit in theirs.

LISTEN to an EXCLUSIVE interview with the Parents from An American Family by the host of Action Speaks!
LISTEN HERE
Marc Levitt’s phone interview with Bill and Pat Loud, October 2011 (28,5 minutes)

Pong introduced America to video games and now there seems to be no turning back.
As more and more people around the world use video games to pass the time, to teach and learn and to create alternative realities, it is time for us to consider what its implications are and whether or not we are leading or being led-and to where.
Available: PRX, FTP (email for instructions)
Listen HERE

Action Speaks! takes on:
Conflict and Amusement in America

This year Action Speaks! examines how the border between conflict and amusement is disappearing and what it portends for good TV…are we all embedded?

The popular Action Speaks! series of specials returns in October with four one-hour programs looking at contemporary issues by using underappreciated dates of the twentieth-century that changed America.

Host Marc Levitt assembles a panel of scholars, artists, practitioners, and government officials, and adds archived sound and audience participation to create Public Radio’s most lively and entertaining discussions.

2011 topics:

• 1961 – President Eisenhower’s Military Industrial Complex Speech
• 1972 – The Birth of Pong and Video Games
• 1971 – The American Family; Our First Reality TV Show
• 1981 – President Reagan Fires Air Traffic Controllers

COST: FREE
LENGTH: 1 hour
AVAILABLE: PRX, CD, FTP (email for instructions)

NEW EPISODES AVAILABLE WEEKLY STARTING OCTOBER 15th

PREVIOUS years episodes available now on PRX
For more information, visit www.actionspeaksradio.org

Still Singing the Blues

LENGTH: 2 Hours (Pair together or broadcast independently as one-hour specials)
COST:FREE
AVAILABLE: PRX, CD, Downloads (email for info)
LISTEN

Action Speaks: Underappreciated Dates that Changed America – A series of 1 hour radio specials. Join host Marc Joel Levitt & guest panelists for some old-fashioned community exchange; Action Speaks looks at contemporary issues through the lens of history by using underappreciated dates of the twentieth-century that have changed America.

The 2010 Season  is organized around the theme ‘What’s Eating Us?’
With our country still mired in economic collapse, Action Speaks takes a look at the patterns of consumption that got us in this mess in the first place ( and that may help get us out).

Fall Season Episodes

• 1998 The Sonny Bono Act (Copyright Term Extension Act): Protecting Mickey Mouse or Helping the ‘Beat Go On’ in the Realm of Innovation?
  
• October 6: 1926 Father Coughlin ‘On the Air’ and the rise of right wing radio
• October 13: 1971 Alice Waters Opens Chez Panisse; Local Food and the Promise of Healthy School Lunches
• October 20: 1973 The First US Mobile Phone Call; Always within reach!
• October 27: 1987 The Roaming Mobro Garbage Barge; Garbage, Garbage Everywhere and no direction home!

LENGTH: 1 hour
COST: FREE
AVAILABLE: PRX, Downloads

THE WATER-ENERGY CRUNCH: A Powerful Puzzle — A one-hour special report on the Water-Energy Nexus from IEEE Spectrum Magazine and the National Science Foundation looks at how engineers, communities and countries are working on innovations to balance water and energy needs.
LENGTH: 1 Hour
COST: FREE
AVAILABLE: PRX, Content Depot, CD
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