Girl Reporters and Cyclic Seriality

Abstract

In this article, the cycle framework is applied to the 1930s girl reporter pictures. The films illuminate the operations of a programmer cycle, a form yet to be explored in cycle studies, opening the consideration of cycles to a wider cross-media trend. The formal and informal practices of repetition and seriality within the cycle are shown to possess limited life spans that, like cycles, were subject to market determinants. Studying cycles as historical, commercial processes contributes a deeper understanding of how industrial strategies were developed, modified, and adjusted in response to a particular set of economic and cultural conditions.