Life — September 14, 1928 — page 12: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis of Life Magazine Page This page satirizes early radio drama production. The main article "History Is Bunk" mocks radio's pretensions: it describes how radio stations produce scripted "dramatic sketches" with professional actors and actresses, treating them as serious theater despite their limited, invisible format. The cartoons highlight the absurdity of this medium. The top left shows a diplomat at a social gathering—the joke being that radio creates artificial "diplomacy" between studios and listeners. The lower illustration depicts dock workers discussing a radio drama about "triplets," suggesting that ordinary working people are now consuming manufactured theatrical content through this new technology. The satire targets radio's theatrical pretensions and the gap between production effort and the intimate, invisible nature of the broadcast medium itself.