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K-State Today

April 2, 2019

JMC professor co-authors new book, 'Moving Sounds: A Cultural History of the Car Radio'

Submitted by A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications

Ian Punnett, professor of practice in the College of Arts and Sciences' A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications and chief operator and faculty advisor for KSDB-FM, has co-authored a book titled "Moving Sounds: A Cultural History of the Car Radio."

"Moving Sounds" explores the unique animating symbiosis that develops whenever previously unrelated technologies become intertwined and form a mutually invigorating relationship. When "car" and "radio" became permanently inculcated, it changed how both cars and radio were designed and experienced. "Moving Sounds" is the first book-length study exploring the relationship between the car and the radio. While much scholarship has been devoted to the general history of radio, radio's unique relationship with the open road has been largely overlooked. The nascent interconnectivity between the early car and radio developers, and what they did to help each other, is another aspect of cultural history that is explored in "Moving Sounds."