Congratulations to EWU McNair Scholar Jules Amante for completing her McNair Summer Research Internship!
She worked with mentor Dr. Jacki Hedlund-Tyler on her summer 2024 research, “FRC/FCC and their Role in the Regulation of Sex and Sexuality on the Radio, 1927-1939″. Jules’ research was presented August 15, 2024 at the McNair Summer Research Symposium. Of her research, Jules explains:
This project focuses on the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) and later the Federal Communication (FCC) Commission’s role in the censorship of sexual content on the radio between 1927 and 1939. The Radio Act of 1927 and replacement in 1934 gave their corresponding agency the right to censor and penalize broadcasters for obscene, indecent, or profane language. Censorship and regulation was not exclusive to the government. Social actors demanded the government to punish broadcasters and stations with varying results. Broadcasting stations, fearing penalties and desiring a wide audience, self-censored liberally. The desire for cleanness pushed radio broadcasting to become sanitized and regulated three-fold. Recognizing the government’s history in media censorship provides insight into how independent groups and media creators interact with government regulation in the past and present.
Jules will graduate in fall of 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in history. Her research interests include Archives and the censorship of archival materials, accessibility to historical information by the public, and the effects of restricting information in the academic world. She aims to attend graduate school for a double major in Library science and Public History with a focus on archives, and later a Ph.D. in Library Science.
