| Project/Area Number |
19K20579
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Review Section |
Basic Section 80030:Gender studies-related
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| Research Institution | University of Tsukuba |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2019-04-01 – 2022-03-31
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| Project Status |
Completed (Fiscal Year 2021)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥2,990,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,300,000、Indirect Cost: ¥690,000)
Fiscal Year 2021: ¥650,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥150,000)
Fiscal Year 2020: ¥780,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥180,000)
Fiscal Year 2019: ¥1,560,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥360,000)
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| Keywords | Film History / Newspapers History / Women's History / Film Promotion / Women's history / Journalism / Mass media / Cross-promotion / Media ecology / Media Ecology / American Modernity / Visual Culture |
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| Outline of Research at the Start |
The goal of this research is threefold: by focusing on women’s contribution to Hearst’s media empire, I aim to reassess the role played by the Hearst’s media empire within American modern history, show the centrality of women’s contribution in America’s re-imagining of itself as a modern nation, and, finally, enhance our understanding of how Americans conceived of modernity and modern subjectivity in early 20th century popular culture.
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
The research allowed me to digitize a large number of newspapers only available on microforms to better understand the extend and context of film promotion in Hearst newspapers and how film content and women's content intersected. Based on this archival collection, I have argued that the close proximity of film content and the society pages in Hearst newspapers contributed to granting film and filmgoing a cachet of sophistication and respectability. Particularly, I have shown that film stars and society women were photographed and framed in similar fashion, and that their portraits were positioned side by side in newspapers to enhance the conflation of the two. This was only possible by looking at actual layout of entire newspapers rather than databases.
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| Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements |
This research an important first step in better understanding how filmgoing was widely perceived and advertised as a female activity, and why film studios devoted a large part of their resources to producing made specifically for a female audience.
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