Learn how Father Coughlin was a pioneer in harnessing the power of radio in its golden age to grow his audience, become an influential voice in American politics, and broadcast antisemitic ideas.

Through clips from the podcast Radioactive: The Father Coughlin Story, students examine how the priest’s sonorous voice and his appeals to emotion and prejudice, rather than logic and reason, played to the new medium’s strengths. They also consider the costs of sowing uncertainty, fear, and doubt through mass media on American democracy.