Postdoctoral Fellowship - Capturing Listeners: International Radio, Religion, and Reception, 1931-1975

博士后奖学金 - 吸引听众：国际广播、宗教和接待，1931-1975

• 批准号: 0551782
• 负责人: Rosalind Williams
• 金额: $ 8.4万
• 依托单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-03-15 至 2008-02-29
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0551782&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Postdoctoral; Fellowship; Capturing; Listeners; International

Capturing Listeners: International Radio, Religion, and Reception, 1931-1975NSF S&S Postdoctoral Fellowship - Project SummaryScholars have paid comparatively little attention to the historical origins and transnational flowsof American religious radio. Grounded in the history of technology, this project focuses on one prong of the post-WWII missionary broadcasting effort: the project to distribute inexpensive radio receivers around the world. Employing extensive new archival sources in the private collections, the project develops case studies of two of the largest missionary receiver distribution programs, as well as the evangelical project to develop a missionary transistor receiver. It demonstrates empirically how international religious broadcasters transformed the shortage of receivers in the developing world into receptivity for American religious programs through a process of capture. Employing the user heuristic from recent STS studies, the project illustrates how capture involved a complicated, often contested, process, since missionaries relied on national listeners to operate receivers and since listeners derived their own set of meanings from radio-mediated religion. Capturing Listeners argues that the routine of everyday radio listening to missionary stations helped to legitimize evangelical religion in numerous developing countries during the postwar period, paving the way for the revival of evangelicalism in Asia, Africa, and Latin America after 1970. The current postdoctoral proposal seeks to extend work on the reception of international religious broadcasting in two directions in preparation for publication of a book manuscript. First, the project evaluates the effectiveness of missionary capture by scrutinizing a rare group of extensive listener sources found in broadcaster archives. These show how missionary audience research methods and conceptions of audiences, as well as listener reports of conversion, shifted along with changes in receiver technology and confirmed broadcaster success in reproducing evangelical experience among listeners. Second, constructing a comparative political economy of international religious broadcasting and reception during the post-WWII era, the project analyzes missionary radio alongside the religion and receiver distribution programs instituted by the Voice of America during the early Cold War period, demonstrating the flexibility of religion as a vehicle for the promotion of American values abroad as well as the constraints which reception demands posed for American broadcasters overseas prior to the advent of the transistor radio.Intellectual Merit and Broader Impact The current postdoctoral proposal possesses clear intellectual merit in several areas. First, it examines a significant area of international broadcasting that has received remarkably little attention from scholars. Second, by problematizing the question of reception as capture, the study highlights the importance of radios material infrastructure. Third, the study of missionary radio activity opens up an important channel for the influence of American culture abroad. Fourth, the study enhances understanding of the experience of selective audiences in developing countries during the historical transition to the transistor radio market. Fifth, it adds to existing scholarship on the VOA by examining areas of VOA activity not previously explored by scholars. As a cross-disciplinary study, this work will build bridges between diverse groups of scholars. It will provide perspective for policy makers in a multicultural, media-saturated society. It will enhance public understanding of the dynamic ways in which traditional religious groups seized the opportunity afforded by modern media and information networks to promote their cause.

捕捉听众：国际广播电台、宗教与接收，1931-1975美国自然基金会S、S博士后奖学金--项目综述学者们对美国宗教广播电台的历史渊源和跨国流动的关注相对较少。这个项目植根于技术的历史，专注于二战后传教士广播工作的一个方面：在世界各地分发廉价无线电接收器的项目。该项目利用私人收藏中广泛的新档案来源，开发了两个最大的传教士接收器分发方案的案例研究，以及开发传教士晶体管接收器的福音派项目。它实证地展示了国际宗教广播公司如何通过捕捉的过程，将发展中国家缺乏的接收者转变为对美国宗教节目的接受度。该项目采用了最近STS研究中的用户启发式方法，说明了捕获如何涉及一个复杂的、往往有争议的过程，因为传教士依赖于国家听众来操作接收器，而且听众从无线电中介的宗教中获得了自己的一套含义。《捕捉听众》认为，在战后时期，每天收听传教士电台的日常广播帮助许多发展中国家的福音派宗教合法化，为1970年后福音主义在亚洲、非洲和拉丁美洲的复兴铺平了道路。目前的博士后提案寻求从两个方向扩展关于接收国际宗教广播的工作，为出版一本书手稿做准备。首先，该项目通过仔细检查广播公司档案中发现的一组罕见的广泛听众来源来评估传教士捕获的有效性。这些资料显示，传教士的听众研究方法和听众的观念，以及听众关于皈依的报告，如何随着接收器技术的变化而改变，并证实广播公司成功地在听众中再现了福音体验。其次，构建二战后国际宗教广播和接收的比较政治经济学，该项目分析了传教电台以及美国之声在冷战早期建立的宗教和接收器分发计划，展示了宗教作为在海外宣传美国价值观的工具的灵活性，以及在晶体管无线电出现之前，接收要求对美国海外广播公司构成的限制。智力优势和更广泛的影响目前的博士后提案在几个领域具有明显的智力优势。首先，它考察了国际广播的一个重要领域，学者们对这个领域的关注非常少。第二，通过将接收作为捕获的问题具体化，该研究强调了无线电材料基础设施的重要性。第三，对传教士电台活动的研究为美国文化在海外的影响开辟了重要渠道。第四，这项研究加强了对发展中国家特定受众在向晶体管无线电市场的历史性过渡期间的体验的理解。第五，它通过研究学者们以前没有探索过的美国之音活动领域，增加了现有的关于美国之音的学术研究。作为一项跨学科的研究，这项工作将在不同的学者群体之间架起桥梁。它将为政策制定者在一个多元文化、媒体饱和的社会中提供视角。它将加强公众对传统宗教团体抓住现代媒体和信息网络提供的机会促进其事业的动态方式的了解。