Dissertation Research: American Radio in Shanghai, 1919-1941

本论文的研究项目解决了两个主要问题，有关美国参与上海的两次大战之间的时代无线电市场。第一，非西方社会缺乏有效利用技术的能力，这一信念如何影响美国在上海无线电市场的活动？第二，两次世界大战之间的上海广播市场是如何最终被帝国主义、国际竞争、分裂的政治和司法权威以及迅速商业化的城市经济所塑造的。分析解决了技术决定论的问题，并探讨了新技术的概念化，开发和实施的社会背景。一系列美国政府、企业和期刊的资料将提供美国观点和政策的概述;这些资料将展示美国对技术的普遍理解，以及这些理解如何体现在针对上海的官方和企业政策中。为了评估美国的理解和行动，将使用中文资料研究20世纪20年代和30年代的上海政治经济;上海市档案馆有关于两次世界大战之间城市广播的具体馆藏，而其他许多关于广播的中文书籍和期刊可以通过斯托尼布鲁克的大学图书馆获得。为该项目提出的跨国研究对于分析国际、多管辖区背景下的技术发展是必要的，比如两次世界大战之间的上海--特别是在处理无线电时，无线电是一种通信技术，其信号可以随意穿越管辖区。通过分析中国和美国的方法来发展通信媒介，如无线电，本论文的研究项目将强调从社会建构主义的角度教学技术的历史的一个关键组成部分：技术发展的过程中，从技术和复杂的文化，经济，政治和社会力量在特定的社会背景下的众多相互作用的结果。

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.