American Journalism after ‘The Age of Mechanical Reproduction’

The Transition from Print to the Digital Age and its Cultural Implications


Master's Thesis, 2010

73 Pages, Grade: 1.0


Excerpt


Content

Introduction

1 Decisive Moments and Constitutive Coordinates in the History of American Journalism - Continuities and Discontinuities
1.1 The ProductionofNews
1.2 The DistributionofNews
1.3 The ReceptionofNews

2 The Function of Print Journalism for the Creation of Public Spheres and Communities
2.1 Thomas Jefferson: A Noble Experiment
2.2 Alexis de Tocqueville on The Relation Between Public Associations and the Newspapers
2.3 Jürgen Habermas: The Public Sphere
2.4 BenedictAnderson: Imagined Communities

3 Major Shifts in American Journalism from First to Second Media Age
3.1 The Role of the Hyperlink and the Search Engine in the Second Media Age
3.2 Marshall McLuhan's Visions of the Global Village
3.3 The Temporal Dimensions ofDigital News
3.4 Locality and Spatial Dimensions ofDigital News
3.5 The Reader's Desire to be a Writer and Editor ofDigital News

4 Transatlantic Reconfigurations of (Print) Journalism in the Digital Age
4.1 A Case Study of the Berlin-based personalized newspaper niiu
4.2 A Case Study of German newspaper WELT KOMPAKT - 'Scroll Down Edition'
4.3 The New York Times 'Insight Lab'

Conclusion

Once given an invention by which man’s thoughts might be communicated to others with a minimum oflabor and expense, journalism was inevitable. (Payne xii)

The brilliant mission of the newspaper is not yet, and perhaps may never be, perfectly understood. It is, and is to be, the high priest of History, the vitalizer of Society, the world’s great informer, the earth’s high censor, the medium of public thought and opinion, and the circulating life blood of the whole human mind.

- Samuel Bowles, Springfield Republican, February 3,1855. (Lee 116)

In a 2009 report1, titled "The Resurrection of American Journalism”, Leonard Downie Jr., former executive editor of the Washington Post, and Michael Schudson, professor of journalism point out: "American journalism is at a transformational moment in history.”2 (1) They both argue that the era of dominant print journalism in the United States of America is ending and rapidly giving way to digital journalism3. A range of major regional American newspapers such as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 2009, for example, have gone out of business in recent years. Even nationwide institutionalized newspapers such as the New York Times4 are not exempt from this overall development.

In the digital age there will be a steady rise, not a decline in the general demand for news - yet the quality, the long established business models, and the distribution of media are drastically changing at this point. Jeff Jarvis articulated the most severe change that is currently happening recently in his blog Buzzmachine, in which he outlines the revolutionary transition from a print to a Link Economy:5

Those old companies still operate in the content economy, begun 570 years by Gutenberg, in which the owner of content profited by selling multiple copies. Online, there needs to be only one copy of content and it is the links to it that bring it value. Content without links has no value. So when search engines, aggregators, bloggers, and Twitterers link to content, they are not stealing; they are giving the gift of attention and audience. Indeed, publishers should be grateful that Google does not charge them for the value of its links.6

In this thesis I will follow Jarvis' line of argumentation that the nature of journalism will change in the Link Economy in many ways, thereby opening a wide range of discussions among scholars from many different fields. First, there is the open question of the economic future of journalism: the essential features of the Internet to provide access to information for free has "loosened the hold of large, near­monopoly news organizations on audiences and advertisers.” (Downie 3) Second, I will discuss which functions journalism has for democratic societies and how these subtle functions of journalism might be achieved in the future. According to the aforementioned study, "reporting the news means telling citizens what they would not otherwise know.” (8) Furthermore, the press has a 'watchdog function' in democratic societies (cf. 9), often referred to as the fourth estate or power. Additionally, the press has to be accountable for what it reports and it has to reach a large number of the population: "Reporting the news undergirds democracy by explaining complicated events, issues, and processes in clear language.” (11) Given the fast pace and instability of digital journalism, the Internet in its current state remains an open hothouse for rumors, and self-fabricated narratives. In addition to this, interactive user participation does not automatically mean a collective claim to truth, or even a higher quality of news. I will discuss both aspects in chapter 3.5.

While the majority of the American population already has broadband access to the Internet7, the 'digital divide' is a socio-economic divide between an educated, media literate class and a less educated part of the population, having less access and less personal digital networks to draw upon the Link Economy of the future. It is likely that this existing digital divide will continue to grow in American society and access to news and accurate and current information might actually get more difficult rather than easier to obtain in the digital age. New portable information technologies have led to a large shift in consumer habits and the ubiquity of information available on the Internet has led to great cultural shifts in the consumption of news.8 Until today, the business models9 for printed news has not changed much in over 170 years, and new business models for creating revenue are most likely needed to sustain print journalism. Considering the 'free' culture of the Internet and word-wide availability of free information, it is perplexing how these new economic models should be properly implemented (cf. Downie 21). The effects of the recent financial crisis - with a historical rise of long-term unemployment in the U.S.10 - on the current developments of American journalism remain unclear at this point. However, it remains impossible for newspapers, which are financed through subscription rates and advertising, to compete in the long run with free and open source journalism on the Internet. I am assuming that during the economic crisis more and more people might simply want to save on their print media spending.11 While many professional investigative journalists got laid off from large news companies in the past few years, there are now hundreds of thousands of bloggers for whom blogging "is still a hobby for which there is little or no remuneration, even if the blog is picked up or mentioned by news media or aggregation sites.” (55) Very few of these bloggers are able at this point to expand their audience or even to hire additional staff. Therefore, blogs constantly "appear and disappear on the Web.” (56) In my opinion the high number of people being active in the blogosphere want to satisfy an essential desire within - the desire of the reader to become a writer and to be heard within the Public Sphere and Imagined Communities of the United States. I will continue to focus on this aspect in chapter 3.5.

Though the focus in this thesis is on (print) newspapers, I will try to point out that the current media revolution has effects on American culture that go beyond the medium as such. Nowadays many 'traditional' (print or mechanical-based) and 'new' (digital) technologies seem to exist side by side. While this seems to be changing rapidly, there is still a fundamental difference between print and the digital word. The printed word is still much higher valued and has more authority compared to digital publication. Frank Cost states: "With the Internet allowing anyone to be a publisher, the material communication provided by print still implies that these ideas are worthy of our time.” (ix)

As I will further discuss in chapter three, news has always been in its very essence connected to spatial and temporal dimensions.

By recognizing the historical and intellectual roots of [...] ideas, the journalist can locate them in only perspective we all have, the perspective of time and space, and thereby bring the underlying reality of the story into focus. (Altschull 5)

Within the realm of digital journalism the temporal dimension of news has been accelerated to near-instantaneous levels as distribution becomes electronic and journalistic content becomes increasingly shorter.12 The local production of news has not only become, but has also defined the Global Village as first envisioned by media prophet Marshall McLuhan in the 1960s. To apply McLuhan's visions to journalism, I believe the ritual model of communication has to be taken into consideration. The ritual model of communication "takes communication to be a social function of building solidarity and reaffirming common values within a community. In the ritual model communication constitutes a community rather than transports a message.” (Schudson 1995, 40) For global and local communities alike - which are often imagined communities in electronic space - newspapers take on a certain function ofbuilding communities, as I will further discuss in Chapter 2.4.

Newspapers, just like other media, provide cultural narratives that have major impacts in the creation and shaping of citizen's identities.

The stories we tell ourselves and circulate among ourselves serve as reminder of who we are and what we're about, and that these stories, this culture, as a system of reminders, make a very big difference in what we do with and in our lives. (Schudson 1995, 42-3)

American newsrooms generally make use of what are called 'master narratives', which are most often repetitive and constrain "the news by resorting to familiar formulas.” (Bennet 182) The term - 'framing' - refers to "the process by which journalists give interpretation or definition to an event or development in order to provide an explanation or judgment about it.” (Patterson 193) With the decline of print journalism and the changed practices of digital journalism the master narratives and the process of framing, in which news are embedded within American journalism, might change over time as a cultural consequence. Considering all issues at stake mentioned, in the digital age journalism seems to be needed more than ever before.

It is very important to remark that any given piece of information as such is not news: "Information has meaning only in the context of a human interpreter: lacking an intelligent entity to interpret the information it contains.” (Deegan 148) Terhi Rantanen states: "Information becomes a news story only when it is narrativized and exchanged.” (17) Therefore, as Patterson points out, "New communications technologies do best at delivering information, not news, and the distinction between the two will remain the ultimate reason for the existence of journalism.” (199) The ubiquity of information available can be compared to "a virtual feast of information, which explodes all around citizens.” (Carey 415) Lokman Tsui defines news on how it "has always been and still is a crucial means for organizing and directing our attention to valuable information.” (71) He sees how news "distinguishes itself from other forms of public knowledge in its claims to truth.” (71) Schudson states that is important, "to recognize news as a social and cultural institution far more complicated than anything one could reduce to an articulate political ideology.” (1995,16)

For the scope of this thesis I am following thoughts by Terhi Rantanen (cf. 18) and define 'news' as follows: news is information that is built into pre-existing social and political narratives with a temporal indexicality, as well as a reference to location. The primal object of newspapers is still simply to give the news. In other words, the very essence of what constitutes news13 and newspaper journalism in all its different forms and functions cannot be defined within a single sentence or paragraph, but can only be seen from wider cultural perspectives and long-term historical developments. Furthermore I will trace some key cultural transformations to the question: what is it that print journalism no longer offers to consumers of news in the United States? One key element might be that digital journalism gives the illusion of interactive user-participation and this undermines the traditional news economy, as for example Andrew Keen argues in Cult Of The Amateur. On the other hand Chris Paterson claims that all citizens of democratic societies "use, practice, and study online journalism.” (1) According to him it influences individuals in multiple ways as they use "the Internet for news and pay less attention to the media of old.” (1)

The central question, which arises from this, is, whether new media journalism really is then a new form of journalism? To what degree does digital journalism differentiate itself from print journalism (cf. Paterson 1)? Michael Schudson raises the questions, "why do people feel a need for journalism?” (1995, 2), and "what is the place of journalism in modern culture?” What is it about news that makes it so much an element of modern public consciousness?” (1995, 2) He further compares journalism - as a cultural construct - to a 'middleman' providing cultural narratives in between governments, businesses, lobbyists, candidates, churches, and social movements on the one hand, and the citizens of democratic societies on the other. If print journalism is abolished then there is no narrative guideline and "citizens tap into any information source they want on computer networks.” (1995, 1) A continuing process of social fragmentation might be the result. There is a paradox in the fact that the hunger for news (narrativized information) is in the center of everyday life more than ever before, and at the same time, journalism as a profession seems to be currently declining. This reveals, or at least hints at, greater cultural changes of the digital age that have already occurred or are perhaps yet to come. The shifts and changes and possible cultural implications can be categorized for this thesis into three argumentative directions, which, of course, all intersect on many levels simultaneously with regards to the nature ofjournalism.

First, with the decline of print journalism both the concept of the Imagined Communities in terms of Benedict Anderson along with the Public Sphere, a concept by German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, might fundamentally alter democratic nation states. Anderson outlined how the concept of nation states functions as an Imagined Community. Even the smallest nation states communities are not face-to- face, and can only be imagined by its members. According to Anderson print capitalism plays an important role in this regard, to which I will refer in Chapter 2.4. The Public Sphere, according to Jürgen Habermas, is instrumental in the consensus of liberal democratic society. In Habermas' idea the Public Sphere is a space characterized by reasoned debate among equals, in which members of a Public Sphere discuss matters of common concern (cf. 3 ff.).

Second, without print journalism, the citizen's perceived time-space relation will fundamentally change (cf. Rantanen). This has implications on the organization of everyday life, but perhaps even more on the long-term writing of history with the absence of newspapers as keepers of record.

Third, the nature of journalism will change since the long-established business model of journalism is drastically changing with the revolutionary technological progress in portable Information Communication Technologies (henceforth: ICTs)14 since the beginning of the new millennium. The more readers take on the role of writers - in the sense espoused by Walter Benjamin - the further American journalism will return again to an infancy stage, from which it might evolve in a very different way from 20th century print journalism. For instance, I will point out that the relevance of 21st century bloggers can easily be compared to the roles postmasters and preachers15 took on in the colonial and early days of the republic: they merely pass on information without investigating local reporting themselves, and many without a degree in the field of journalism. However, according to historian Herbert Altschull "no job or profession requires a higher order of cultural literacy than does journalism.” (6)

The great chance for American journalism in the Link Economy of the future is that well investigated journalism "can open the citizen's mind to unexpected developments and unfamiliar perspectives” (Patterson 199), and citizens will see a need for it with the ubiquity of information available to them. There is also the strong tendency of citizens to choose other trustworthy sources for information and "choose them on the basis of shared interests or values and look to them for guidance in making value-based judgments.” (199) It remains to be seen citizens whether citizens will rely more on their personal networks rather than place their trust and resources in professional sources of journalism (cf. Patterson 199). Major questions are how the long experiment of a free press will enter its next stage and how journalism will transform its nature of reporting. What will be the cultural and political impacts? And last but not least, how will its business models change and evolve? I am arguing that the current decline of print media is not only rooted in the embrace of technological developments per se, but, as I will outline, indebted to other long term socio-economic developments in the consumption and reception of media by citizens.

The first chapter will give an over on the history of American journalism in terms of production, distribution and reception. The second chapter will discuss the functions of print journalism. The third chapter is theoretical approach towards the changes in the transition form first to second media age. The fourth chapter will apply the previous findings on three case studies of hybrid models of both print and digital journalism.

1 Decisive Historical Moments and Constitutive Coordinates in the History of American Journalism. Continuities and Discontinuities

In this chapter I intend to give a comprehensive account on the history of American newspaper journalism in terms of production, distribution and reception of news. However, I will not give a comprehensive survey of the entire media history of America - though one might state: "The history of the newspaper is intimately tied with the history of the United States.” (Martin 1998, 17) Instead I aim to trace some of the key historical developments and decisive historical moments, which changed the key philosophies underlying American journalism in terms of production, distribution and reception of news.16 These categories of course interrelate and are difficult to be divided into categories. Technological advancements lead to decisive moments in the historical developments of American journalism and often merged with other complex political and socio-historical developments, which I can only occasionally touch upon due to the scope of this thesis. For instance, speed has always been a primary concern in the telling of news, and new technological developments played a key role in the distribution and reception of news, as well as its production. For instance one key historical moment in American history - the Civil War (1861-65) - lead to a much greater demand for the most recent news about the war developments at its time. Without the prior invention and building of a grid of telegraph lines, this demand for news would have not been able to be fed by newspapers at the time.

By pointing out constitutive coordinates I will outline the key political foundations of American journalism that have remained relatively constant over time, since they were written in the Bill of Rights of the American Constitution. In 1791 the newly established United States of America was the first country in the history of the world to acknowledge the right of press freedom in the Bill of Rights. Since then the core substance of news seems to have changed little over time and some features of news seem to be consistent: news spreads by the word of mouth and through media such as the printed page and the grows in people's minds. There are always those who aim to control news, those who use it to mislead for their own financial benefit, and those who aim to use it for enlightenment of democratic societies. If a single proposition accounts for all newspapers in the United States, then it is that "they are committed to the proposition that dictatorship and a free press do not and cannot exist simultaneously.” (Silverman 15) By looking at the larger picture, it is not only the freedom of press that is important with regards to the evolution of newspaper journalism. Other constituted rights, such as the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of petition are crucial rights that have to be taken into consideration to understand American journalism in its entirety.

At the time of the discovery and settlement of America, Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in 1455 had already "opened up a new world of information for all people.” (Altschull 33) His invention can be viewed as the dawn of the modern world and accordingly "vast changes were already underway in the western world when Columbus set sail in 1492.” (33) In the early colonial days newspapers were a luxury item17 that were produced and bought by few Americans in only small numbers, distributed slowly and unreliably, and read by the poor classes only publicly in reading rooms or taverns. Only since the nineteenth century the so-called Penny Press newspapers "entered the daily field of experience of almost every man and woman and many children in the United States.” (Lee 94).

Historians have labeled American newspapers quite differently in their function: either as a medium of propaganda, a personal political instrument or as a business institution18. Indeed, American newspapers did take on different functions in different periods of American history. Micheal Schudson, for example, states: "Eighteenth century newspapers were key instruments of commercial and, later, political integration.” (1995, 42) The newspapers in the nineteenth century were key instruments of urban development according to Schudson (cf. 42), which provided not only a forum to advertising, yet provided "a community identity that held a city together, when it was no longer a face-to-face community or even a 'walking' city'.” (42) I will discuss the community-building function of newspapers in more detail in chapter two. Changes in American lifestyle always have historically translated into changes in news as a business:

One of the key factors in understanding the changes in news over the last century - from the penny press to the Internet - has been the changing lifestyle of the American family and the nature of work. (Carey 416)

Since the 20th Century, newspapers were no longer the sole source of information, as they were for much of the early twentieth century. New technologies in media (radio, TV, Internet) lead to more competition for attention and more fractured audiences. Further urban development after World War II created longer car commutes on which drivers listened to the radio, instead of reading newspapers on public transport, which had been systematically displaced by the car industry in large parts of the country during the 20th century. With the advent of television, most families began to sit down in front of the TV after work, rather than reading the newspaper at the dinner table together. With personal computing and the Internet media consumption became more individualistic. Yet, it is important to remind that "the WWW is not a news producer, but a new form of technology used for the transmission and reception of news.” (Rantanen 116)

Changes in demographics lead to perhaps even greater changes in the nature of news than all other factors combined. Carey points out that the census of 2000 indicated that the nuclear family - compromised of a father, mother, and children - makes up only about one-quarter of American households. (416) Along with the change in household composition has come a still under-estimated shift in the nature of news consumption: news has long become an individualistic and fast- consumable product, or as Carey states, "few eat full breakfast anymore; nor do they consume a full breakfast of news.” (416)

1.1 The Production ofNews

Newspapers have had different impacts on the American public over time in terms of circulation and audience. The crafting of newspapers developed alongside technical, political, and socio-historical developments. During colonial times American newssheets had their origin in English Newsbooks19, which first appeared in the mid-seventeenth century (cf. Raymond 20). In fact, the word ‘newes’ itself was a new word in England during this time (cf. Payne 3). When the Pilgrims of the Mayflower landed on the coast of Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620, there was a practical printer - William Brewster - among the 102 passengers (cf. Payne 1). A decisive moment occurred in 1639 when the first printing press was imported into the American colonies. Another printing press was apparently not brought across the Atlantic until 1660 (cf. Payne 5). Although it took until the end of the 17th century for the first newspaper to get published in the colonies, one can say that the foundations for what later would become the idea of a free press were present in the new world from its very beginnings.20

On September 25,1690 the first and only issue21 of Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick was published and quickly suppressed (cf. Lee 15). On April 24, 1704 The Boston Newsletter was the first weekly publication in the colonies and was issued until the Revolution (cf. Lee 15). Postmaster John Campbell started the Boston Newsletter as a handwritten publication (cf. Eaman xvii). Later, the New- England Courant, first published in 1721 in Boston was a decisive moment in that it was a "notable break with official publishing.” (Martin 1998, 19) "By discussing 21 current issues,” (19) this newspaper included more than commercial and official news. According to Shannon E. Martin the New-England Courant stands for "a special place in journalism history”, because "printing 'without authority' was now a possibility.” (19) After the year 1735 "the principle of independent printers and newspapers was established.” (20) Even though the freedom of the press was not politically constituted for another fifty years, without this decisive moment the American Revolution might perhaps have not been possible.

As an institution of public media, newspapers were established throughout the colonies in the first and second quarters of the eighteenth century (cf. Martin 1998, 19). Leonard and other scholars point out that American journalism "was born as a commercial medium.” (Leonard 188). Only in the nineteenth century the attitude shifted and journalists began to fear "commercialization, the dictation of news content by advertisers.” (188) Since the beginning of American journalism preachers and postmasters produced newspapers often alongside their businesses or public functions and interests. This fact strongly influenced the character of those early papers and "for the most part, a printer merely 'conducted' his paper.” (Lee 29) This correlates with Schudson, who states, "In colonial America, printers were small-business people, not journalists.” (1995, 18) In fact, many of these early newspaper publishers used their role as printers to enlarge their social networks and boost their business (cf. Lee 44). Often they were simply passing on pieces of information that was in different ways 'handed' to them. For instance, the Boston Postmaster John Campbell apparently made use of his position to collect information "by asking letter recipients what incoming letters contained.” (Martin 1998,18)

Slowly but surely newspapers developed as larger print businesses and began to publish more frequently in the colonies. More and more towns and cities had their own newspapers which bound the local and regional communities together: "By 1750 most literate residents had access to some sort of weekly or semi-weekly newspaper, and by 1770 the Massachusetts Spy began publishing a tri­weekly newspaper.” (19) In the larger cities, the independent semiweekly and tri­weekly papers formed but transitions to the daily. Tri-weeklies in particular continued for any length of time only in cities where the establishment of "dailies took place tardily.” (Lee 18) With the dawn of the American Revolution during the latter half of the eighteenth century, a widespread need for up-to-date information created the first subscribers market (cf. Lee 59). With peace and American independence from Britain, the need for information shifted again and "newspapers representing the special commercial and political interest ofbusiness men proved to be the answer.” (59)

The sources of these early newspapers were "primarily weeks- or months- old foreign news, business announcements, and the editors own essays.” (Martin 1998, 3) Therefore, early colonial newspapers already carried "a mix of foreign and local news.” (18) According to McLuhan, "newspapers had waited for news to come to them.” (UM, 211) Only later, as he points out, "the press began to sense that news was not only to be reported and also gathered, and, indeed, to be made.” (UM, 212) Colonial papers often addressed "items of local concern, items of inter-colonial interest and transatlantic matters that affected colonial life or the world situation.” (Martin 1998, 18) In New England for example, "religious news was the most important item.” (Payne 10)

The first American daily newspaper, the Pennsylvania Evening Post only appeared after the Revolution in the newly established United States of America and was published in 1783 (cf. Humphrey xiii). After the American Revolution newspapers became closely attached to one political party or another and "the development of the party press was a logical outgrowth of the public printer role.” (Martin 1998, 3) The process of printing remained a slow and expensive process that was labor intensive.22

The beginnings of the Penny Press by New York printer and illustrator Benjamin Day in 1833 can be interpreted as a decisive moment in the history of American journalism. The name Penny Press simply derived from the fact that newspapers could now be offered for a price of a single penny. In comparison to the six cents or more that were asked for a newspaper before, this was now an affordable price for the majority of citizens (cf. Lee 46-7). After this point in time reading a personal copy of the newspaper became a common practice.23 It is generally agreed upon by scholars that the Penny Press helped to democratize news, because it was now cheaper to produce papers: "A social climate of universal education and rapid expansion of the physical territory of the country stimulated mass readership of newspapers.”24 (Martin 1998, 4)

Journalistic independence, a trend, which had started as the time of the Penny Press now began to accelerate, "especially in larger cities, due to the strong financial standing of many newspapers. Advertising revenue exploded, and rising circulation added considerable money for publishing ventures.” (Martin 1998, 29) Martin points out how the "penny papers were among the first industries to adopt the newest technological innovation for gathering and transmitting news - the telegraph.” (27) Introduced in 1844, wire services were established between 1846 and 1851 (cf. 27). The wire services were a decisive moment: they remarked the beginning of what would later become the global electronic village. For the first time in history news could travel electronically.

The Penny Press has often been associated with the modern concept of news (cf. 26). It introduced "many of the elements of the modern newspaper that we recognize today: human interest stories, tales about local crimes and scandals, and information from the newest innovation - the interview.” (4) It now included modern news items such as "short items from the police courts and sensational treatments of murder trials and catastrophes jostled with reports of sports and religious events.” (Lee 430) In fact, the technical advancement led to large shifts in the production of news: "Under the pressure of the technically, advanced transmission of news, any event already becomes specialized.” (Habermas 185) This means that after the pieces of information were transmitted by telegraphs and journalists now wrote their journalistic stories around the core facts of the transmitted pieces of news. Correspondingly, "the relationship between publisher and editor changed.” (185) Habermas claims that at this moment in time the literary practice of writing news became a journalistic practice (emphasis mine) (cf. 185). According to him, this led to the practice that "the selection of material became more important than the lead article.” (185) In summary it can be said "many of the characteristics that we associate today with the modern newspaper began to emerge during the era of the Penny Press” (Lee 430). These characteristics further developed with the invention and spread of the telegraph, which led to a shift in the production of news: the professional practice ofjournalism was invented.

In 1848 the Associated Press (AP) was founded "when six papers in New York City decided to share the cost of gathering news outside of the metropolitan area.” (Silverman 29-30) The AP was intended as a corporative venture in "news collection and distribution and quickly incorporated news by telegraph among its methods.” (Martin 1998, 28) Along with many other social and economic factors of the time, the telegraph "hastened the adoption of the information, or report model of news.” (28) The characteristics of the telegraphic report involved the need to transmit "concise, well-summarized, important information at the beginning of a transmission25 in case connections are lost.” (28) The reports emphasized the 'who, what, where, when and why', which "is sometimes linked to development of the modern-day invented pyramid news lead.” (28)

The American Civil War (1861-65) was a decisive moment for American journalism in terms of how it "further entrenched the emerging news style with an emphasis on information and facts over opinion. Information streamed from the telegraph by the hour, and city papers began to bulletin the highlights.” (28) In addition to this, the war26 brought along a "vast expansion of the newspaper industry and of advertising.” (Lee 431). The invention of the telephone in 1876 led to further specialization of newsrooms (Martin 1998, 29).

[...]


1 Published October 20, 2009.

2 Also compare Overholser (2005), 440.

3 The PEW Research Center for the People and the Press states: "The latest biennial survey on news consumption from the PEW Research Center for the People & the Press reveals signs of a new phase, perhaps even a new era, in the acquisition and consumption of news.” (Commentary section)

4 According to Web. http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-new-york-times-cash-situation-still-a- crisis-2009-4: In 2010 it The New York Times company "will owe about $1.2 billion in debt.” (2009 estimate, not confirmed by the company) - I have no credible source to back up this number, which shows very explicitly the potential areas of conflict in digital journalism.

5 1 will use Mark Posters (1995) term Second Media Age later in this thesis as a synonym.

6 Jarvis, Jess. Buzzmachine. Web. www.buzzmachine.com - retrieved: March 10, 2010.

7 Broadband Access covered 57% of all American homes in 2008, according to Web. http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/0804/

8 The PEW Research Center for the People and the Press states: "Digital platforms are playing a larger role in news consumption, and they seem to be more than making up for modest declines in the audience for traditional platforms.” (Overview section)

9 Advertising has always supported production and distribution of newspapers, as well as a low price at the newsstand. With higher distribution there used to be higher revenue of advertising, which has now widely migrated to the Internet. According to Philip Meyer, "advertising accounted for 82 percent of newspaper revenue in 2000 and circulation was the other 18. That was a shift from a 71-29 division in midcentury.” (75)

10 However, even in latest Report (Sep 12,2010)by the PEW Research Center for the People and the Press the economic crisis and its possible effects on the consumption and production of news were not mentioned within the survey.

11 Seemingly a paradox, media scholars have pointed out that consumer expenditures on media and communication are currently rising, not shrinking (cf. Cortada), which might have a lot to do with the willingness to pay high prices for mobile smart-phone applications and integrated services within 'closed' media systems.

12 Twitter with a mere content of 140 letters per posted message [so called tweets] is considered the shortest recent phenomena in the world of news. The advertising slogan on the website is: “Discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.” - Web. www.twitter.com - retrieved: August 31,2010. - The PEW Research Center for the People and the Press however states: “Most Facebook and Twitter users say they hardly ever or never get news there.”

13 Bowles points out that "news has always differed in quality; there is news of opinion, news of incident, and event, news of policies, and of the administration of public affairs, news of men and of personal character, and news of society and of social movements and life.” (116)

14 A term used by Roger Gibbins in his essay: "Federalism in a Digital World”. Canadian Journal of Political Science. XXXIII: 4 (December 2000), 667-689.

15 1 will explain this first in Chapter One: in Colonial America, preachers and postmasters passed on news in local, often isolated, communities. They conducted newspapers to promote their own agenda and businesses.

16 Fora more extensive account please confer Altschull, J. Herbert. From Milton To McLuhan. The Ideas Behind Americanjournalism. NewYork & London: Longman, 1990.

17 On a side note, with the ubiquity of free information available to citizens with access to the Internet in the digital age, printed newspapers are not only currently drastically declining in terms of production, distribution and readership, but also their social status from a mass to exclusive product for certain class and interest groups seems to be shifting again.

18 John Tebbel states in 1963: "The newspaper business is the only business in America which is given special protection in the Constitution by the virtue of the First Amendment [...] It was written in recognition of the unique purpose the press serves in a free society, as the keeper of moral values. The American newspaper hat not yet achieved that purpose in its nearly three centuries of history in this country, but it must if it is to have meaning and value in the society which history is now shaping.” (268)

19 For a more detailed account on the origins of newspapers, please confer Raymond, Jaod: The Invention Of The Newspaper. English Newsbooksl641-1649.

20 According to George Henry Payne, the backwardness of Virginia in this respect was partly due to the attitude that is shown in the statement of Governor Berkeley, when reporting in 1671 on the condition of the colony: "‘Thank God, we have no free schools nor printing; God keep us from both'” (67). The colony had more than one printing press until 1766. (67)

21 It was planned as a monthly publication.

22 Martin further states without being very explicit: "Prior to the early 1800s, the printing industry had changed little since the days of Gutenberg. Printing was a slow process that involved thirteen steps just to produce one page.” (133-4)

23 Ross Eaman points out in the Historical Dictionary of Journalism: "Between 1790 and 1840, the percentage of households reading newspapers increased from between 10 and 20 percent in 1790 to close to 70 percent by 1840.” (25)

24 Shannon E. Martin points out: "Editors [...] sought to democratize their publications through the elimination of all forms of social division, such as elitist essays and the use of educational language.” (1998,136)

25 Shannon E. Martin further points out "high transmission fees further encouraged short, concise messages.” (Martin 1998, 28)

26 The fact that the issue of slavery had divided the nation and the press before the outbreak of the Civil War is simply notmentionedin most historicaccounts ofAmericanjournalism (Wewseum,Washington D.C.).

Excerpt out of 73 pages

Details

Title
American Journalism after ‘The Age of Mechanical Reproduction’
Subtitle
The Transition from Print to the Digital Age and its Cultural Implications
College
Humboldt-University of Berlin  (Amerikanistik und Anglistik)
Grade
1.0
Author
Year
2010
Pages
73
Catalog Number
V175196
ISBN (eBook)
9783640960590
ISBN (Book)
9783640961177
File size
675 KB
Language
English
Keywords
American Journalism, Social Networks, news
Quote paper
Bjoern Schubert (Author), 2010, American Journalism after ‘The Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/175196

Comments

  • No comments yet.
Look inside the ebook
Title: American Journalism after ‘The Age of Mechanical Reproduction’



Upload papers

Your term paper / thesis:

- Publication as eBook and book
- High royalties for the sales
- Completely free - with ISBN
- It only takes five minutes
- Every paper finds readers

Publish now - it's free