Remembering Radio

The objective of the remembering radio project is to reclaim early memories of radio in the lives of everyday Canadians. The hope is to discover more about the role of radio in the homes and lives of ordinary Canadians from its inception.  This phase of the project is centred on listeners’ memories from the 1930s. Studies of the audience, its members’ opinions, likes and dislikes, program preferences, and the role of Canadian radio are rare.

The information that the listeners from that time period have to share is very valuable to this project. Individuals who have time to spend with an interviewer can help to shed some light on this long neglected area of broadcasting history.

This research has been awarded a Social Science and Humanities Research Council grant to interview Canadian listeners.  Please do not hesitate to contact Prof. Anne MacLennan at amaclenn@yorku.ca for the quickest response.  You can also leave messages at 416-736-2100 extension 33857.

Prof. MacLennan will be speaking on 740 AM on Tuesday, June 30, 2009, so you can get a quick sense of the project then.  We hope to find out what it was like to be listening to the radio in the 1930s.

The Remembering Radio project is a look at the audience.  American radio networks surveyed their audiences as early as the 1920s and the British made use of radio diaries among other tools.  In Canada, the early radio audience has not been well documented so this is our chance to recover some of the memories of early radio.

Rebecca Beausaert is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at York University. Her dissertation examines the intersections between class, gender, and leisure in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth small-town Ontario. Prior to beginning her graduate work, Rebecca was a Research Assistant to Annandale National Historic Site in Tillsonburg, Ontario where she conducted interviews for the Tillsonburg Historical Society’s Living Memories Heritage Project. She is beginning her second year of a Graduate Assistantship with Professor MacLennan by conducting in-person and phone interviews in the London and surrounding area.  She may be contacted at rbeausae@yorku.ca.

Sonja Macdonald is a third year PhD student in the York/Ryerson Joint Graduate Program in Communication and Culture. Her dissertation researc is focused on local broadcasting policy in Canada, with a special attention to the case of Hamilton, Ontario. Before returning to academia, Sonja was the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Centre for Community Study, a Hamilton based, not-for-profit research organization with a focus on urban issues, such as local media, cultural and economic development, and community social policy. Sonja holds a MA and BA in Communication from Carleton University, and a BA in Political Science from the University of British Columbia.  She may be contacted at sonjam11@yorku.ca

Susan Flavelle has been enjoying interviewing the public for the past six years. After earning her BA degree in Social/Cultural Studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland, she worked as the Human Resources Manager for an award-winning market research firm in Ottawa, Ontario. Susan is currently working on her MA degree at York University in the Communication and Culture program. Her interests lie in oral history and the role of media in everyday life. She may be contacted at sflav@yorku.ca

Sophia Koutsoyannis is a final year PhD student in the Department of History at York University.  She lives and works in the Montreal area and is available in person and by telephone to conduct interviews in French and/or English.  She hopes to attract a lot of interest in interviews in the province of Quebec.  She can be reached at sopkou@yorku.ca.

Her dissertation “Immoral but Profitable: The Rise and Fall of Cabarets in Mexico City, 1930-1960″ looks at how these urban spaces of leisure were made and remade through complex negotiations between state actors,  prostitutes, musicians, unions and civic groups. For her project, she worked closely with octogenarians whose memories of cabarets, popular music and dance greatly contributed to her research.

Denese Gascho is a PhD student in the Joint Communication and Culture Programme at York and Ryerson Universities. Previously she worked as a senior political reporter and producer at Television Jamaica. As a Quintin Hogg scholar at the University of Westminster, London, she produced a short documentary on the social and environmental effects of the government’s plans to build two new runways in the south-east of the United Kingdom. She is currently researching the impact of international copyright agreements on the development and growth of subscription television in Jamaica.

Denese Gascho is working on Remembering Radio in the Toronto area or in Canada and the United States by telephone. She can be reached regularly Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at 416-736-2100 extension 33857 from January to April 2009 or at dalloyd@yorku.ca

Jen Hassum is a Graduate Assistant to Prof. Anne MacLennan for the project Remembering Radio, and a first year PhD student in the History Program at York University. She is hoping to expand upon her MA research paper that studied labour unrest and homefront ideology in Canada during World War II. While completing her research paper, Hassum organised enjoyable and informative interviews with men and women who wanted to share their memories of the 1940s.  Jen Hassum  is also available for interviews in Toronto and by telephone.  Please contact her at jen.hassum@gmail.com

Rebecca Carvalho is an undergraduate student pursuing a degree in Communication Studies and English Literature.  She has been and continues to provide support for the Remembering Radio project and will start to do interviews in the Toronto area, possibly Brampton and by telephone.

Carlos Lemus is a fourth year economics major at York University.  He will be available to conduct interviews in the Toronto area and by telephone.  He has been providing invaluable support to the radio research since July 2009 and is moving to the interview phase of the project.

Aidan Moir is a third year Honours Specialized Communication Studies student at York University.  She is providing support to the radio research project and will be moving on to interviews in the next few months.

Caeleigh Boara is in her first year of the digital media program at York University.  She provides support to the Remembering Radio project and will be starting to conduct interviews in the Mississauga area and by telephone.

Any of the interviewers would be happy to conduct your interview or of someone you know by phone or in person. For now you may also e-mail them at amaclenn@yorku.ca and they will make contact with you.

Thanks for your interest in Remembering Radio.

Anne MacLennan

Researchers will come to anyone willing to participate in the project to record their early memories of radio in their homes and the programs they preferred. Available times for the researchers to visit for the purpose of interviews in other Canadia cities and the possibilities for phone interviews will be posted on this site.

Please contact the principal investigator on this project at the address, phone number or e-mail below to record your interview.

Prof. Anne MacLennan,
Division of Social Science,
TEL Building 3025,
York University,
4700 Keele Street,
Toronto, Ontario
M3J 1P3

Please leave voice mail messages at:
416-736-2100 extension 33857

Or make contact by e-mail at:
amaclenn@yorku.ca

Prof. Anne MacLennan is teaching in the Communication Studies Program at York University. While her teaching ranges from research methods to policy and advertising, the focus of her research is early Canadian radio history. Until this point her research has been centred on the selection of programs available to Canadian listeners. Prof. MacLennan is currently completing a book on the development of radio program schedules during the 1930s when the CRBC and CBC were first established.  The work is based on a strategic random sample of newspaper listings from Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver.  The data demonstrates that Canadian programming developed alongside American programming, but with its own local, regional, provincial and national twists.  Now she is turning her attention to what, how and why listeners chose from the radio program listings available.