Audience Feedback in the News Media

Bill Reader is Associate Professor in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, USA

"Bill Reader traces a remarkable history of reader comment and feedback, bringing the phenomenon full circle from anonymity and partisanship through balance and restraint to today’s faceless, nameless and full-throated digital free-for-all." -- Frederick Blevens, Florida International University, USA"This book provides a revealing look at the public’s conversation shared via the press. It lets readers know that even though technology has changed, today’s ability for the individual to reach a mass audience has much more in common with the press before the 20th century than we might imagine." -- David Copeland, Elon University, USA

• Introduction 1. Audience Comments, the Spice of History 2. "Packets of Letters": Audience Comments before Freedom of the Press 3. "A Sure Sign of Liberty, and a Cause of It": Audience Feedback and the Emergence of the Free Press 4. Commodification of Comments: Professional Bias and Gatekeeping of Letters to the Editor 5. Professional Journalism's Transformation of "A Quaint Tradition" 6. The Concerning "Crackpots": The Media's Love-Hate Relationship with Feedback 7. "In my opinion ...": Commenting as Individual Agency 8. "We, the people ...": Commenting as Collective Action 9. Conclusion: Gatekeeping in an Age without Fences