Review: Global Citizenship: A Critical Reader (original) (raw)
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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.
Mass media have always served as central institutions of the public sphere, providing opportunities for public debate and opinion formation. This chapter addresses the historical development of mediated forums for public participation, paying particular attention to the relationship between technological change and transformations in the role of media professionals as gatekeepers in mediated communities of opinion. It argues that successive waves of technological change have had profound consequences in terms of broadening access as well as diversifying forms, platforms and genres through which communities of opinion have taken shape. In the process, journalists and media organizations have been compelled to loosen their grip on editorial control over the mediated expression of public opinion. This shift has taken place alongside -and in part as a result ofdevelopments through which the ideal of interactivity and the valorization of participation have gained ever more purchase. The early history of communities of opinion: tracing the development of letters to the editor Early print publications, by most measures the first mass media, made little distinction between opinion and news content, or, correspondingly, between opinion pieces in the form of letters to the editor and reports on current events. In the prominent account of Jürgen Habermas in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1989), for example, the first newspapers emerged as the organic 1 continuation of private newsletters. Before the advent of the steam train and the telegraph, printers relied on news arriving by postal coach or ship, and stories
British and American press: a critical analysis
America and Britain are two nations that are bound together by shared history, an overlap in religion and a common language. This affinity was reflected in many areas among which the press was no exception. However, America, and since its independence, has taken a practically different course with a view to forging its own identity in print media. The latter, in the beginning bore some resemblance to British print media, but they also developed their unique features. In this paper, I shall spell out the similarities and differences between both media from different perspectives.
This study offers a five-item based measurement of popularization of news (combining sensationalism, scandalization, emotionalization, ordinary citizen approach and privatization of public figures) to examine a core assumption in the comparative literature, namely the convergence in Western journalism toward the Liberal Model. A content analysis of more than 6000 stories from 18 news outlets (regional, national and weekly papers) in six press systems (United States, Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland, France and Italy) stretching five decades (1960s to 2010s) finds an increase but no convergence in the popularization of political news. Factors located at the national and the organizational levels correspond in characteristic ways with differences in the use of popularization-related strategies. With the growing need to offer additional attractions to oversaturated consumers, further increases in popularized political news are to be expected in the future but only according to specific conditions. KEYWORDS comparative media research; content analysis; convergence; emotionalization; political news; popularization index; scandalization; sensationalism
Book Review: The Media and Public Life: A History by John Nerone
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 2017
In The Media and Public Life: A History, the distinguished historian of communications John Nerone traces the evolution of journalism in America from the colonial era to the present. Although Nerone has much to say about journalistic values, his history is most emphatically not an onward-and-upward chronicle of triumphant professionalism. Journalism for Nerone is not and never has been a profession like medicine or law. Rather, it is a set of craft practices organized around institutional arrangements that journalists almost never controlled. Journalism did not reflect public opinion, as historians often assume. Rather, it has been a "mechanism" for representing it-a role Nerone contends it played better than any other institution during his lifetime, yet one that is waning today. Written for an academic audience in an acerbic and occasionally elliptical style, Media and Public Life may well confound undergraduates unfamiliar with names, places, and dates. Even so, it deserves a wide readership among media scholars, historians, and social scientists. Well grounded in U.S. historiography, including the recent literature on print culture and political economy, it will be particularly valuable for lecturers seeking an up-to-date literature review and PhD students on the prowl for dissertation topics. No book since Michael Schudson's Discovering the News (1978) has done more to clarify key junctures in the history of the American newspaper. Christopher B. Daly's Covering America: A Narrative History of a Nation's Journalism (2012) covers much of the same ground with more detail, though less analytical heft, while Paul Starr's Creation of the Media (2004), which is excellent on political economy, is more tightly focused on public policy, and does not extend beyond the Second World War. Media and Public Life is innovative not only in its chronological sweep, but also in its topical range. The newspaper remains near center stage, as is appropriate for a book about public life. Yet, Nerone also has much to say about the post office, radio, newsreels, television, magazines, and the Internet. The etymology of key terms-including 691497J MQXXX10.1177/1077699017691497Journalism & Mass Communication QuarterlyBook Reviews book-review2017
Review: Mass Media/Mass Culture: An Introduction by James R. Wilson and S. Roy Wilson
DergiPark (Istanbul University), 2022
The Mass Media developed as an industry with the rise of modernity in the American social system. Its primary effects have been to reinforce certain dogmatic truths derived from its multicultural heritage, which emerged out of its former status as a colonized territory. American society is culturally a mosaic, in which mass communication media such as books, TV, radio, magazines are tools that allow a profit to be made. Thus, mass media is crucial to the development of the modern structure of American society. The media uses cultural elements that can be sold to "followers", denominated as the "audience", "readers", or even "fans". Mass culture refers to everything in the culture that is generated and disseminated via mass media. Mass Media/Mass Culture aims to explore the media and cultural issues that are historically associated with the American social system. The authors assert that the mass media is astonishingly successful in telling us what we should think. The Wilsons' particular focus is on the effects of this dissemination by using a conceptual outlook grounded in the association and dissociation analysis of media and culture. Mass Media/Mass Culture consists of four parts, focusing on the diverse relationships of culture and media in the establishment of a mass perspective. Part I, "Culture and Communication", highlights the role of communication in attaining cultural hegemony. Commercialized culture is presented to individuals and groups in society as communication gifts wrapped as candies, and disguised in denim brands and logos. Moreover, the media is shown to have an immense effect on the legal system. Indeed, its fundamental purpose is the promotion of ideology and legislation. Governmental policies are targeted by many media institutions; these institutions are represented, supported and also approved by powerful agents. Media groups are informally assigned by the government to serve as its "watchdogs", creating a conflict with constitutional rights, as explicitly stated in the First Amendment right of a free press and the Sixth Amendment guarantee of a fair trial. After explaining the relationship between the media and culture from a philosophical sense, Part II, entitled "Development of Print Media", deals with the publishing industry and its great impact on the establishment of social consciousness. This chapter vividly expresses the great significance of books, magazines and newspapers in the construction of a nation, revealing that American identity has been shaped in accordance with the views of increasingly powerful publishing houses. The appointment of editors in the publication industry is, either partly or wholly, made on the basis of political affiliation. Censorship in the book-publishing industry reached a peak in the late 1940s and 1950s. This political interference in the publishing industry is very thoroughly examined. Its deliberate effect on education is also explained; as a result of compulsory public education, there was an enormous growth in the influence of popular culture. In schools, only state-approved schoolbooks were allowed, and topics such as sex, race, religion and drugs were banned. This censorship policy reappears at several intervals in American history. Macbeth was not recommended because of references to witchcraft, and Twain's Huckleberry Finn was branded as a racist novel due to its use of the "nigger" word. In addition to the book-publishing industry, magazines and newspapers, designed to satisfy public taste in order to maximize sales and profits, also support the development of popular culture in society.
By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community," said Oscar Wilde [1] echoing a sentiment of debasement of news and more importantly, people who are considered newsworthy. This sense of distrust in the news media is not a 21 st century phenomenon. Mass society theorists of the early 18 th century claimed that Mass media inevitably debase higher forms of culture brining about a general decline in civilization] (S Baran, D Davis, 2004). This discourse over the years shifted focus from the mass media's impact on 'higher forms of art' to a dumbing down of itself (news). This phenomenon of trivialization of news, which has resulted in a general cynicism surrounding the quality of content generated by news media globally, is often dubbed as 'the tabloidization of news'.