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Events
Jun. 30 | 2012 Bode-Pearson Prize
Nominations for the 2012 Bode-Pearson Prize for Outstanding Contributions to American Studies due
Jun. 30 | 2012 Mary C. Turpie Prize
Nominations for the 2012 Mary C. Turpie Prize for Outstanding Contributions to American Studies Teaching, Advising, and Program Development due
Oct. 1 | Travel Grants for Graduate Students
For submission guidelines, click here
Resources: Abstracts of American Studies Dissertations
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Russo, Alexander. "Roots of Radio's Rebirth: Audiences, Aesthetics, Economics, and Technologies of American Broadcasting, 1926-1951," American Civilization, Brown University, May 2004.
This dissertation focuses on the history of American broadcasting by examining how radio assumed the strictly formatted, musically-programmed structures that have defined its form and content for much of the last fifty years. It argues that post-network, post-television radio was structured by the interaction of new technologies of program production and distribution, changing economic models, shifts in the aesthetics of aural communication, and the development of segmented audiences, all of which had roots in earlier forms of radio broadcasting. The first half of the project explores alternative means of program production and distribution in relationship to the institutional production of audiences. Chapter one examines the rhetorical construction and institutional basis for a national, wired-network system as well as an alternative network model, the regional chain. Chapter two examines the technological, discursive, and institutional histories of sound-on-disc transcriptions as a means of distributing programs. Chapter three charts the relationship between “spot sales” and the role of station representatives as “audience intellectuals” in mediating the interactions of local stations and national advertisers. The second half of the dissertation charts how the form and content of broadcasting developed in conjunction with technologies of sound reproduction, modes of listening, and audience appeals. Chapter four examines how ideas of universal comprehension and the imagination influenced the technological and aesthetic development of network radio’s production practices. Chapter five examines the structuring role of the aural body in both “universally appealing” network drama and “focused appeal” black programming. Chapter six explores radio’s shift from a primary to secondary medium through changes in radio receiver technology, spaces of reception, and practices of listening.
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