Dissertation Research: American Radio in Shanghai, 1919-1941

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This dissertation research project addresses two primary questions concerning American involvement in Shanghai's interwar era radio market. First, how did beliefs that non-Western societies lacked the capacity to utilize technology effectively influence American activities in Shanghai's radio market? Second, how was Shanghai's interwar era radio market ultimately shaped by its varied experiences with imperialism, international rivalry, divided political and judicial authority, and a rapidly commercializing urban economy. The analysis addresses the issue of technological determinism, and explores the societal context in which new technologies are conceptualized, developed, and implemented. A collection of American government, corporate, and periodical sources will provide a overview of the American perspectives and policies; these sources will demonstrate popular understandings of technology in the United States and how such understandings manifested themselves in official and corporate policies directed toward Shanghai. To evaluate American understandings and actions, Shanghai's political economy during the 1920s and 1930s will be researched using Chinese language sources; the Municipal Archives in Shanghai have specific holdings on the city's inter-war era broadcasting, while a host of other Chinese language books and periodicals addressing radio can be accessed through the university library at Stony Brook. The multinational research proposed for this project is necessary to analyze technological development in an international, multijurisdictional context like interwar Shanghai-- especially when dealing with a radio, a communications technology whose signals can traverse jurisdictions at will. By analyzing both Chinese and American approaches to a developing communications medium like radio, this dissertation research project will underscore a key component to teaching the history of technology from a social constructivist perspective: that the course of technological development results from the numerous interactions between technology and the complex cultural, economic, political, and social forces in a particular societal context.