Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This study applies Rosengren’s (1981) notion of mass communication as a cultural indicator to examine the possibility that changes in U.S. broadcast media content are a function of social change. Using two measures of change in program types – the number of programs and the yearly average ratings, we examine changes in program types in network radio and television from 1927 through 1995, and provide evidence that these changes are related to certain changes in the social system.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Chinese working-class politics experienced a drastic shift around 1927. Prior to 1927, the warlords' incapacitation in labor policy and indiscriminate and arbitrary suppression brought conflictual state-labor relationss into existence, and working class politics turned out to be radical. After 1927, the new authoritarian regime adopted a dramatically different labor policy in dealing with the labor movements since it had taken control of most of China. Unlike the warlords' regime, the leadership of new regime proclaimed their ideology based on Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People, promulgated and amended the Labor Laws, established the local mediating agencies to enforce the laws, and selectively suppressed pro-communist labor unrest. In this way, the new regime gave the rise to consensual state-labor relations, which de-radicalized working class politics, and more specifically, workers obtained a lot of ecnomic benefits from their collective actions.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Arthur Page is remembered as the ideal public relations manager because of his influence on AT&T management and policy. Yet scholars have not adequately evaluated the consequences of the policy he helped to design and implement. A review of the Financial Policy and its effects on shareholders, consumers, and employees during the Depression indicates that AT&T upheld its commitment to service and reasonable profits, but the policy benefited investors at others’ expense.

Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: Founded in 1908, the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority continues to serve African-American women, men and children through national and local service programs. AKA’s national headquarters are in Chicago, and the city’s Beta chapter has a long history of reaching out to Black girls and women through health initiatives, educational outreach and social support. The sorority’s open motto, “By Merit, By Culture” has shaped how its national leadership promotes and conducts service, nationally and internationally. In 1927, AKA established a national program devoted to providing vocational guidance to young women in Chicago’s schools, particularly in high schools. The central goal of the program was to provide advice and ideas to “hundreds of young girls facing the necessity of making decisions regarding their life’s work.” In this paper, I will provide the history of the vocational guidance movement in the U.S. and its significance to African-American people, with an emphasis on women’s participation in these programs. I will also contextualize the Vocational Guidance projects in relationship to pre- and post-Depression era Chicago, as well as discuss the successes and limits of these programs.

(1)Pauline Sims-Puryear. “Address Delivered in University Hall, Ohio State University,” Ivy Leaf, December 28, 1926, 6.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The “golden age” of radio broadcasting was dominated by large, national broadcasting networks. The rise of these networks is thought to have been accompanied by a dramatic decline in the number of locally orientated stations in operation in the U.S. However, this presumption contradicts the dynamics of concentration and organizational foundings in a variety of other industries. In this paper, I utilize comprehensive data on the vital rates of radio station founding, failure, and density to empirically test the popular claims of network dominance in the mid-century U.S. broadcasting industry. My results indicate that locally owned commercial stations were not eliminated by the rise of national broadcasting networks. In fact, concentration in the hands of the networks actually increased the viability of locally owned radio stations.