Mediating American History – serie

The Freedom of Information Act was signed into law during the last half of the twentieth century to ensure public access to government documents. In this book, Shannon E. Martin details the history that led to the law’s enactment and the resulting discoveries in government repositories over the past fifty years. In light of the ongoing national security war on terror, this is a timely and historical overview of the accessibility of government-held information.

Many books have been written about the press and terrorism – particularly since September 11th – but this is the first press-focused exploration of their relationship. Drawing upon the history of terrorism, mass communication research, media theory, and journalism practice, this book examines how the press reports terrorism, and how that reporting varies depending on the medium and location. Examining the differences in reporting – globally and historically within different media and government systems – Terrorism and the Press provides insights for how, in the future, we can better navigate the relationship between the press, government, and audience when terrorists attack.

Many books have been written about the press and terrorism – particularly since September 11th – but this is the first press-focused exploration of their relationship. Drawing upon the history of terrorism, mass communication research, media theory, and journalism practice, this book examines how the press reports terrorism, and how that reporting varies depending on the medium and location. Examining the differences in reporting – globally and historically within different media and government systems – Terrorism and the Press provides insights for how, in the future, we can better navigate the relationship between the press, government, and audience when terrorists attack.

Journalism in the Civil War Era examines the contributions of newspapers and magazines to the American public’s understanding of the nation’s greatest internal conflict. It documents the effect the Civil War had on journalism, and the effect journalism had on the Civil War. It describes the politics that affected the press, the constraints placed upon it, and the influence of technology. The book discusses the editors and reporters who covered the war, profiling the typical newspaper of the era as well as the response of the press corps to wartime challenges. Providing a broad account of journalism during this period, this book serves as an important reference for scholars and students, and as a supplementary text for courses in journalism history, U.S. press history, civil rights law, and nineteenth century history.

The 2003 war against Iraq was not the first instance of a president taking the nation into foreign conflict assisted by a submissive Congress and national press corps that did not adequately challenge the case for intervention. All foreign U.S. military action since World War II has been undertaken without the constitutionally required declaration of war, and with the support of the national press corps. Factors behind this press complicity – which is at odds with the traditional press role of watchdog over government policies – include political, economic, and national security ideologies the press shares with administration and government officials – the same sources upon whom the press relies for credible information.Sending troops to fight in foreign lands is the most difficult, and most important, decision a president can make. Assisting this decision has been a press that, in failing to meet its watchdog responsibility during this key pre-war period, has instead helped construct and maintain a war agenda. With a comprehensive overview of all conflicts from the Korean War to intervention in Libya, this book examines the supportive relationship of press to power in building a conflict rationale during the vital period leading up to combat.

Previous histories of the press in the American Civil War have focused on how journalists covered military operations. Taking a cultural approach, this book is unique in its focus on the press as a social, political, and economic institution that both shaped and was shaped by the Confederacy’s experience in the Civil War. It expertly documents how the press changed, how it stayed the same, and how it evolved by examining the role of the press in Confederate society, social and demographic characteristics of journalists and their audiences, legal regulation of the industry, and how the war influenced the business side of journalism as well as the editorial.The story of the Confederate press provides a prime opportunity to study how a domestic war affects the American press. By examining the actors as well as the roles, it is possible to draw a more complete picture of the place of the press in the Confederacy and how the war influenced Southern newspapers.

Seventy-five years after the infamous broadcast, does War of the Worlds still matter? This book answers with a resounding yes! Contributors revisit the broadcast event in order to reconsider its place as a milestone in media history, and to explore its role as a formative event for understanding citizens’ media use in times of crisis. Uniquely focused on the continuities between radio’s «new» media moment and our contemporary era of social media, the collection takes War of the Worlds as a starting point for investigating key issues in twenty-first-century communication, including: the problem of misrepresentation in mediated communication; the importance of social context for interpreting communication; and the dynamic role of listeners, viewers and users in talking back to media producers and institutions. By examining the «crisis» moment of the original broadcast in its international, academic, technological, industrial, and historical context, as well as the role of contemporary new media in ongoing «crisis» events, this volume demonstrates the broad, historical link between new media and crisis over the course of a century.

African Americans in the History of Mass Communication offers a variety of stories focusing on how African Americans use the media to educate, advocate, empower, and serve others. Stories ranging from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Era, which include different forms of media from cinema and music to newspapers and public relations, offer perspectives that have yet to be told. The book’s concluding chapter includes personal accounts from several of its contributing authors detailing how they researched their chapters. These accounts offer questions designed to generate thought about scholarship and history. Students may use these anecdotes as guides for their own research.

African Americans in the History of Mass Communication offers a variety of stories focusing on how African Americans use the media to educate, advocate, empower, and serve others. Stories ranging from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Era, which include different forms of media from cinema and music to newspapers and public relations, offer perspectives that have yet to be told. The book’s concluding chapter includes personal accounts from several of its contributing authors detailing how they researched their chapters. These accounts offer questions designed to generate thought about scholarship and history. Students may use these anecdotes as guides for their own research.

This is the first in-depth look at the development of the television newscast, the most popular source of news for over forty-five years. During the 1940s, most journalists ignored or dismissed television, leaving the challenge to a small group of people working above New York City’s Grand Central Terminal. Without the pressures of ratings, sponsors, company oversight, or many viewers, the group refused to recreate newspapers, radio, or newsreels on the new medium. They experimented, argued, tested, and eventually settled on a format to exploit television’s strengths. This book documents that process, challenging common myths – including the importance of a popular anchor, and television’s inability to communicate non-visual stories – and crediting those whose work was critical in the formation of television as a news format, and illustrating the pressures and professional roadblocks facing those who dare question journalistic traditions of any era.

During the 1950s and 1960s, the Cold War and the potential for nuclear attack were on everyone’s mind. It should therefore come as no surprise that despite an initial reluctance, several television shows that aired during this period focused on the atomic and hydrogen bombs ("the Bomb") and their potential for destruction. Music and the Atomic Bomb on American Television, 1950-1969 is the first book to consider the important role that music and sound play in the destruction narratives about the Bomb on Cold War-era television. This book not only examines the television shows that deal with the nuclear weapons in various forms and genres, but also contextualizes these shows through an analysis of primary source documents such as government pamphlets and documents, newspaper and periodical reports, presidential records, composer and television production records, and informational trade paperbacks.

During the 1950s and 1960s, the Cold War and the potential for nuclear attack were on everyone’s mind. It should therefore come as no surprise that despite an initial reluctance, several television shows that aired during this period focused on the atomic and hydrogen bombs ("the Bomb") and their potential for destruction. Music and the Atomic Bomb on American Television, 1950-1969 is the first book to consider the important role that music and sound play in the destruction narratives about the Bomb on Cold War-era television. This book not only examines the television shows that deal with the nuclear weapons in various forms and genres, but also contextualizes these shows through an analysis of primary source documents such as government pamphlets and documents, newspaper and periodical reports, presidential records, composer and television production records, and informational trade paperbacks.

From the cardinal Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling that desegregated U.S. public education to the demonstrations, marches, and violence of the civil rights movement, A History of the American Civil Rights Movement Through Newspaper Coverage: The Race Agenda, Volume 1 traces the crusade for justice through the lens of major newspaper coverage to reveal the combating sectional press attitudes of the era. The book details attempts, blatant and subtle, to frame the major events of the movement in themes that have resonated from before, during, and since the Civil War. States’ rights versus constitutional guarantees of freedom and equality, nullification versus federal authority, and regional social and cultural mores that buttressed the prejudices and political arguments of segregation and desegregation across the nation are some of the issues covered. This analysis of the press coverage of events and issues of that tumultuous period of U.S. history—by newspapers in the North, South, Midwest, and West—exposes perspectives and press routines that remain ingrained and thus relevant today, when journalistic treatment of political debate, ranging from traditional newspapers and broadcast platforms to those of cable, social media, and the Internet, continues to set an often volatile and oppositional political agenda.

Yankee Reporters and Southern Secrets: Journalism, Open Source Intelligence, and the Coming of the Civil War reveals the evidence of secessionist conspiracy that appeared in American newspapers from the end of the 1860 presidential campaign to just before the first major battle of the American Civil War. This book tells the story of the Yankee reporters who risked their lives by going undercover in hostile places that became the Confederate States of America. By observing the secession movement and sending reports for publication in Northern newspapers, they armed the Union with intelligence about the enemy that civil and military leaders used to inform their decisions in order to contain damage and answer the movement to break the Union apart and establish a separate slavery-based nation in the South.

American Consultants and the Marketization of Television News in the United Kingdom provides unprecedented insight into American news consultants’ role in reshaping British television news during the 1990s. In 1986, American research and news consulting company Frank N. Magid Associates began infiltrating the British market. Five years later, the company was consulting for an extensive list of British client stations in preparation for the 1991 Independent Television (ITV) franchise auction. Their efforts were controversial, prompting public outcry against the "Americanization" of British television news. Despite the hostile climate, Magid’s efforts were successful. Nine of their eleven client bidders emerged victorious from the franchise auction. This was only the beginning. Throughout the 1990s, Magid employees crisscrossed the country with research studies, business and marketing plans, and writing and storytelling seminars. At the time, this was the company’s largest venture into international television. American consultants’ work abroad is important. They spread the U.S. model—the origin of today’s on-air style—and changed television news globally by working with indigenous media. Yet, despite their vast influence, limited research has been conducted on their international efforts, largely because of proprietary material. This book is based on unprecedented and unrestricted access to Magid’s archives. In addition, interviews with Magid staff and U.K. journalists allow for a comprehensive examination of the marketization of British television news, attending especially to how news became better tailored to the medium and audience; the key concepts that Magid advocated to be integrated into U.K. news; and the societal forces at play in this transformation. American Consultants and the Marketization of Television News in the United Kingdom is a recommended read for anyone interested in journalism and television history, Americanization, media economics and sociology.

Although the American Civil War has received extensive scholarly attention in the 150+ years since its conclusion, far less scholarly work has been devoted to western newspapers and their experiences of that bloody conflict. This first volume of a two-volume set reveals that the West was not immune from the war’s battles, military recruitment, national anxieties, or partisan infighting. The Western Press in the Crucible of the American Civil War explores how editors throughout the region (from the Great Plains to the Pacific Coast) responded to secession, the war, and its immediate aftermath. This edited volume examines editors’ outspoken partisanship (including political feuds), their newsgathering techniques, their financial concerns, and their responses to wartime press censorship. The book also reveals how the war was reported in the western press, while also casting a light on reporting of home front issues. This first volume reveals the financial and editorial lengths that editors went to in order to meet readers’ demands for war and home front news across a vast region where infrastructure was poor and news, therefore, was often slow to arrive. The second volume, The Midwestern Press in the Crucible of the American Civil War, focuses on the press in the midwestern United States.

The Midwestern press is probably the best example of the "typical" American press of the Civil War era. Its denizens were not the huge metropolitan dailies of New York and Philadelphia, nor were they the struggling weeklies of the western territories. They did not feel the hard hand of war as the Southern press did in its struggles to obtain enough paper and ink to continue printing. Instead, Midwestern publishers and editors mostly continued on, business as usual, with some disruptions as staff members joined up to fight the war for the Union, or were drafted.Democratic newspapers experienced the most war-related trauma as neither political nor military leaders understood the concept of the loyal opposition and sought to shut down non-Republican newspapers or those that supported peace efforts.Debra Reddin van Tuyll and Mary M. Cronin explore the history of the Midwestern press as it examines the political, social, and economic roles of the press. This work will be useful as a supplemental text in undergraduate or graduate journalism history classes and can be used in history classes that deal with the Civil War or the nineteenth century.

Journalism in the Civil War Era presents the historical context of Civil War journalism—placing the press of the era within the entire nineteenth century. It gives a broad account of journalism in the Civil War, reflecting on the political, military, legal, and journalistic issues involved in this era. It is written with chapters that examine these various facets of the journalism of the period, but they are connected by the theme of the development of the wartime press, with an emphasis on the professional, political, social, economic, legal, and military factors that affected it. It provides:An in-depth look at the political press in the 1850s and 1860s, and how it played a major role in the nation’s understanding of the conflict;Technology’s role in carrying information in a timely fashion;The development of journalism as a profession;The international context of Civil War journalism;The leadership journalists displayed, including Horace Greeley and his New York Tribune bully pulpit;The nature of journalism during the war;The way freedom of the press was advanced by polarizing political extremes. The work is historical, written in an engaging style, and meant to encourage readers to explore and analyze the value of freedom of the press during that very time when it most comes under fire—wartime. “David W. Bulla and Gregory A. Borchard explore ties between journalism and politics and between New York and the Midwest (then known as the West) before the Civil War. Newspapers shared an increasing emphasis on information over opinion. Facts often tended to fit the editors’ agendas with winners overplaying their triumphs and losers becoming more restrained. Major newspapers, particularly the New York Herald with the largest investment in correspondents, placed news on the front page and interpretation inside, even while publisher James Gordon Bennett initially blamed Lincoln for the war. Major dailies increasingly reported news from the front and smaller papers relied more on opinion and local angles.”—William E. Huntzicker, Minneapolis writer and author of The Popular Press 1833-1865 "Bulla and Borchard have produced what has been long needed in the study of U.S. Civil War journalism: a social and cultural history of the American press that goes beyond anecdotal accounts of war news. They explore the nature of the Civil War-era press itself in all its strengths and weaknesses, ranging from political and economic grandstanding and over-the-top verbal grandiloquence to the sheer bravery and determination of a number of editors, publishers, and journalists who viewed their tasks as interpreters and informers of the day’s news. Using a mix of carefully selected case studies as well as an extensive study of newspapers both large and small, this highly readable work places the Civil War press squarely where it belongs—as a part of the larger social and cultural experience of mid-nineteenth century America."—Mary M. Cronin, Department of Journalism, New Mexico State University "The study of Civil War journalism has traditionally been treated as a facet of the history of war correspondence, but war reporting does not exist in a vacuum, as David Bulla and Gregory Borchard skillfully show readers in their latest edition of Journalism in the Civil War Era. This new edition freshens the book’s original version by expanding on their insightful examination of the way the American Civil War ushered in the greater reliance on the information model of journalism, which would exist side-by-side with the existing partisan model. Few scholars have attempted the sort of holistic study that examines not only the nature of Civil War journalism but, more significantly, the symbiotic relationship between the press and its culture. Bulla and Borchard have done the hard work of digging out the necessary evidence to paint a full-color portrait of journalism during America’s bloodiest conflict."—Debbie van Tuyll, Professor Emerita, Department of Communications, Augusta University

The second edition of The Magazine Century: American Magazines Since 1900 offers the freshest and most up-to-date history of American magazines through 2020. It includes chapters telling the stories of new magazine launches in each decade since 1900. These chapters offer a behind-the-scenes look at America’s best-known magazines and publishers and how they got started. It also includes this key information not included in the first edition:• Updated circulation data for major magazines• Major magazine closings and new launches• Ownership changes at major publishing companies • Histories of several magazines not in the 1st edition• The internet’s effect on magazine publishing• Biographies of colorful and controversial editors• New details about the history of Black-owned magazines• The pandemic’s effect on magazine publishing• Recent interviews with magazine editors and publishers• The surprising rebound of print magazines

This book is an expansive history of community weekly newspapers in the United States during the twentieth century. It explores such topics as ownership, business practices, employees and hiring practices, educating college students to work for weeklies, community involvement, government propaganda campaigns in small-town weeklies, syndication services, community leadership, advertising and other revenue sources, and competition for audiences with the development of radio and television. Weeklies told the story of average American daily lives more thoroughly and in a more personal manner than the big-city dailies. In essence, the weekly publisher-editor served as author of his community’s life story. Despite the problems that faced the weekly industry throughout its long and proud history, the constants that remained were identifying and utilizing survival tactics. Throughout the twentieth century an obituary had been written for community weeklies, but they found a way to fight back and happen upon a means, a method, or a message that resonated with audiences and advertisers enough to allow them to keep their doors open. Today, however, many community weeklies are shutting their doors after generations of family ownership. Chain-owned weeklies are also closing as media companies downsize for financial survival. These weeklies and their stories are a vital part of U.S. history. This book serves as a supplement to journalism and business history courses, or as a text for special topics courses. It is also of general interest to U.S. history buffs and current or former media workers."Beth Garfrerick has given us an important, seminal work. Most historians have ignored community newspapers. Prof. Garfrerick shows that they played vital roles in the lives of their readers. Her book is a major contribution to the study of journalism history."—David Sloan, Founder, American Journalism Historians Association "This book serves as an important corrective to the dominant narrative of American journalism, which has focused too exclusively on big-city dailies while ignoring the personal, grassroots journalism found in thousands of influential weekly newspapers around the country. It is a must-read for media scholars, who will appreciate Garfrerick’s skill in uncovering these newspapers’ economic strategies and historicizing their vital public role."—Tracy Lucht, Professor of Journalism History and Women and the Media,Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, Iowa State University

Journalism in the Civil War Era presents the historical context of Civil War journalism—placing the press of the era within the entire nineteenth century. It gives a broad account of journalism in the Civil War, reflecting on the political, military, legal, and journalistic issues involved in this era. It is written with chapters that examine these various facets of the journalism of the period, but they are connected by the theme of the development of the wartime press, with an emphasis on the professional, political, social, economic, legal, and military factors that affected it. It provides:An in-depth look at the political press in the 1850s and 1860s, and how it played a major role in the nation’s understanding of the conflict;Technology’s role in carrying information in a timely fashion;The development of journalism as a profession;The international context of Civil War journalism;The leadership journalists displayed, including Horace Greeley and his New York Tribune bully pulpit;The nature of journalism during the war;The way freedom of the press was advanced by polarizing political extremes. The work is historical, written in an engaging style, and meant to encourage readers to explore and analyze the value of freedom of the press during that very time when it most comes under fire—wartime. “David W. Bulla and Gregory A. Borchard explore ties between journalism and politics and between New York and the Midwest (then known as the West) before the Civil War. Newspapers shared an increasing emphasis on information over opinion. Facts often tended to fit the editors’ agendas with winners overplaying their triumphs and losers becoming more restrained. Major newspapers, particularly the New York Herald with the largest investment in correspondents, placed news on the front page and interpretation inside, even while publisher James Gordon Bennett initially blamed Lincoln for the war. Major dailies increasingly reported news from the front and smaller papers relied more on opinion and local angles.”—William E. Huntzicker, Minneapolis writer and author of The Popular Press 1833-1865 "Bulla and Borchard have produced what has been long needed in the study of U.S. Civil War journalism: a social and cultural history of the American press that goes beyond anecdotal accounts of war news. They explore the nature of the Civil War-era press itself in all its strengths and weaknesses, ranging from political and economic grandstanding and over-the-top verbal grandiloquence to the sheer bravery and determination of a number of editors, publishers, and journalists who viewed their tasks as interpreters and informers of the day’s news. Using a mix of carefully selected case studies as well as an extensive study of newspapers both large and small, this highly readable work places the Civil War press squarely where it belongs—as a part of the larger social and cultural experience of mid-nineteenth century America."—Mary M. Cronin, Department of Journalism, New Mexico State University "The study of Civil War journalism has traditionally been treated as a facet of the history of war correspondence, but war reporting does not exist in a vacuum, as David Bulla and Gregory Borchard skillfully show readers in their latest edition of Journalism in the Civil War Era. This new edition freshens the book’s original version by expanding on their insightful examination of the way the American Civil War ushered in the greater reliance on the information model of journalism, which would exist side-by-side with the existing partisan model. Few scholars have attempted the sort of holistic study that examines not only the nature of Civil War journalism but, more significantly, the symbiotic relationship between the press and its culture. Bulla and Borchard have done the hard work of digging out the necessary evidence to paint a full-color portrait of journalism during America’s bloodiest conflict."—Debbie van Tuyll, Professor Emerita, Department of Communications, Augusta University

Given the highly globalized and converged sets of communication technologies in the contemporary media landscape, information consumers—all of us—can begin to understand the complexity of interpreting daily news. Providing an overview of American media, press, and journalism, and the events, institutions, and people related to its development, this book helps readers develop perspective on contemporary media by using its development for reference. Along with an array of supplemental materials, readers will find tools used by both reporters and historians to understand the present through the past, allowing readers to use the history of journalism as a lens for their own storytelling, reporting, and critical analysis skills. While focusing on American news, the book also features international media other than print newspapers alone. It integrates public relations, advertising, broadcast, and the Internet into a story of the press that builds a singular narrative for a general audience."This book tells the story of a nation that decided in its founding that two things had to be foundational for the country and its primary institutions to last: one was that it should have newspapers; and the other was that those newspapers would be free and independent to publish as they pleased. This has not always been a harmonious relationship… nevertheless, it is the basis of the American system, and the press is the only profession directly mentioned in the Bill of Rights. Perhaps as important is the fact that culturally the United States has had a built-in dependency on news from its founding. Thus, it is through this lens that the whole panorama of American mass media must be viewed, which Borchard and Yotova have done here."– David W. Bulla, Augusta University, Georgia"A refreshing update on traditional media history texts, Pressing Matters takes a new approach by highlighting the influential people and events that comprise that history—from Colonial-era printers who first pursued values of free press and free speech to the partisans, publishers, populists, muckrakers, and innovators who built a powerful press and thus a nation. Students will discover in this book engaging, accessible content that smoothly connects the history of the press with their own, media-saturated world."– Katrina Jesick Quinn, Slippery Rock University, Pennsylvania"In this thorough and thoughtful study of journalism in the United States, Borchard and Yotova use social, cultural, and political analyses to explore a broad range of significant issues over the course of US history. Offering much to ponder and debate, this book provides a crucial context for understanding the freedom of the press."– Orville Vernon Burton, author of Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court and Age of Lincoln

How has the mass media changed our experience of Election Day? This chronological account of Election Day in Philadelphia begins in the colonial era and traces the evolution of the democratic process through to the present day. Using a variety of sources, the book documents how Philadelphians have dramatically changed the ways in which they perform and discuss Election Day, and examines the significance of these changes, using them as a lens through which to understand differing conceptions of democratic life. Particular attention is paid to the day’s status as a mass-mediated ritual, and the various forms of media – among them broadsides, newspapers, television, and the Internet – that have dominated public portrayals of the occasion.Well-researched and written, Celebrating Democracy is as much about the history of Election Day as it is about the history of American journalism and mass media.

When Apollo 11 landed on the moon in July 1969, it capped not only the most remarkable engineering feat in history, but also a decade-long battle over how much access the press and public should have to the manned space program. Now, forty years after an awed world watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin bounce across the surface of the moon, this book tells the behind-the-scenes story of how NASA and the U.S. media were often at odds, but ultimately showed extraordinary cooperation in bringing the story of lunar conquest to the world. Drawing upon rich historical sources from NASA, journalists, and television networks, this book sheds new light on how media shaped how we saw America’s great adventure in space, and raises contemporary questions about the role of information in a free society.