2019 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Women's Modernity and the Hearst Media Empire
| Project/Area Number |
19K20579
|
|---|
| Research Institution | University of Tsukuba |
|---|
Principal Investigator |
|
|---|
| Project Period (FY) |
2019-04-01 – 2022-03-31
|
| Keywords | Women's history / Journalism / Mass media / Cross-promotion |
|---|
| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
In order to assess women's contribution and women's content in the Hearst newspaper of the late 1920s and early 1930s, I visited libraries in Chicago, New York City and Washington DC to digitized issues of East Coast Hearst papers. An initial assessment of the material focused on the 'Women's Pages', pages targeted specifically at a female readership. The goal was to determine to what extent the content of these pages conforms to the oft-repeated commonplace that these pages focused on the "4 Fs: Food, furniture, fashion, and family." My early findings suggests that while content of the women's pages differed from paper to paper, it was also much broader in scope than expected. The paper that I have prepared, based on this research, was accepted at a major conference but could not be delivered due to Covid-19.
|
| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
Findings could not be presented at conferences this year, and most likely will have to be postponed for another year, as will further archival research. Time originally allotted for archival research will be substituted with writing and publication.
|
| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
Moving forward, focus will shift to the female contributors to the Hearst papers, to the discourse around women and modernity voiced in the paper, and to the larger question of whether women's interests were voiced outside of the women's pages. Finally, an additional research focus stemmed from the first stage of this research: the extent to which class figured in women's content. I plan on exploring this issue further.
|
| Causes of Carryover |
Miscalculation.
|
Research Products
(4 results)
