The Radio Takes the Stump
A mere 4.7% of U.S. households owned a radio in 1924, yet that was still enough to constitute "the first radio election." A 1924 New York Times Magazine article described the momentous change.
It will be no disgrace for the president to sit in the White House and talk confidentially to the radio, though millions listen in. The Democratic candidate will doubtless take the stump, but no night will be thought complete without a radio speech from him.
...
It makes no difference whether they talk in a little hall without raising their voices or scream themselves hoarse in Madison Square Garden, they will have such audiences as they never had before.
Radio reached majority penetration beginning in 1931, so 1932 is arguably when the true "radio age" for presidential elections began. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's famous "Fireside Chats" began in March 1933. You can listen to the first one here.
What would be the equivalent new technology today? Probably TikTok.
By April 2019, the Chinese-owned app was was launching songs to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. By September 2020, President Donald Trump was threatening to block the app from the U.S. entirely. But politicians themselves weren't really using TikTok in the 2020 election.
By 2024, though, they are. President Joe Biden joined TikTok in February, posting his first video on Super Bowl Sunday. Titled "lol hey guys," it currently has 10.3 million views.
One wonders whether future historians will regard the "lol hey guys" video with the same reverence bestowed on FDR's first Fireside Chat.
The Radio Takes the Stump
Published: Sunday, March 9, 1924