British and American press: a critical analysis (original) (raw)

The Americanization of the British Press, 1830s–1914: Speed in the Age of Transatlantic Journalism

Media History, 2013

This impressive book brings together two strands of media history to create a new narrative, attempting to explain how and why newspaper journalism in Britain and the United States was transformed between the 1830s and the first decades of the 20th century, establishing the popular style of journalism we know today. It is the culmination of many years' scholarship by the author, a Professor Emeritus of History at the City University of New York, whose sizeable contribution to 19th-century newspaper history includes two pertinent essays on the 'new journalism' or 'yellow journalism', as this phenomenon is known in Britain and the United States respectively. The two essays are a 1988 chapter, 'How new was the new journalism?' and his 1994 development of one strand of that chapter, 'The Americanization of the British press, 1830-1914'. (1) Here he has fleshed out the latter article into book form, although the broader framework of the earlier piece would have made a better monograph.

"Window on the Wider World": ‘‘The rise of British news in the United States

Journalism Practice, 2008

Elite British news media such as the BBC,The Economist and the Guardian have experienced large increases in US audiences in the post-September 11 media environment. This article explores the nature and extent of this new ‘‘British invasion,’’ outlining key institutional, cultural and journalistic factors distinguishing mainstream US media from their UK counterparts. In particular,the British are seen as stepping into a void created by shrinking US international news coverage aswell as providing a broader range of liberal political views that may contribute to expanding the US news agenda. The possible perils of the increased flow of their journalism into the United States for UK-based media are also considered

News, newspapers and the transatlantic - conference paper

2014

This paper begins to explore two relatively recent developments in the historiography of the long-eighteenth century. The first concerns the history of news and newspapers; the second, the genesis and development of 'American' self-identity. Scholarly interest in the shaping of news has led to a number of recent publications which help broaden our understanding of what news is, and its historicity. As the subtitle suggests, Andrew Pettegree's 2014 monograph, The Invention of News: How the World Came to Know about Itself, combines the twin concepts of news and self-identity. 1 And, in 2011, Daniel O'Quinn published his exploration of the 'reconstitution of British subjectivities' that took place during American War of Independence. O'Quinn neatly links the real and imagined spaces of the newspaper and theatrical performance to point out the thirst for 'news' and its relation to how Britons thought about themselves during the loss of Empire. He also highlights the commercial impetus behind the press and stage, noting on John Wilkes' novel -and illegal -publication of parliamentary debates in the Middlesex Journal, the Gazetteer and the London Evening Post in 1771, that 'Wilkes and his supporters pushed on the limits of the law for political reasons, but the printers wanted to print parliamentary debates because they sold papers. Readers wanted access to parliamentary debate because of the intense interest in the furore surrounding events in America.' 2

Americanization, or: the Rhetoric of Modernity. How European Journalism Adapted US Norms, Practices and Conventions

The Handbook of European Communication History, 2019

This chapter provides a historical perspective on the influence of US cultural forms, norms, practices and textual conventions on European journalism since the rise of the mass press in the 1880s. It critically discusses and challenges the notion of "Americanization." Point of departure is not the question if and how the United States has "Americanized" Europe, but how European news media have "Americanized" themselves. How were US examples perceived, incorporated and adapted in various national contexts? This chapter discusses "Americanization" as a discursive label that was used to deal with the up-and downsides of modernity and mass society, and it critically engages with the grand narrative of journalism history that frames the development of journalism in terms of professionalization and modernization. It shows how influential this normative framework has been over time and how it impacted journalism while simultaneously making a plea for understanding European traditions of journalism in their own right.

On Press, Communication, and Culture

The current study goes back to the beginnings of media communication in order to re-examine and valorize this field’s specific aspects. Special attention is given to the invention of the printing press in Europe, by Johann Gutenberg, or by another person hidden under this name, and to his influence in spreading information and entertainment. The printing press would become an industry, seen as a business. This liberal approach of printing texts necessary to an ever growing and increasingly educated public would contribute to the emergence of the first publications (journals or gazettes). Their diffusion would be enabled by the readers’ need for news and entertainment, as well as by the interest in profit, as proven by the owners of such businesses. Keywords: Gutenberg, print, communication, typographic technique, information, news, occasionals.