History 2015 Abstracts
Point-Counterpoint: The Debate that Embodied a Decade • Elizabeth Atwood, Hood College • Point-Counterpoint, 60 Minutes’ much-parodied debate between Shana Alexander and James Jackson Kilpatrick, became a cultural icon, not because of the arguments presented but because the two commentators embodied the battle of the sexes that was at the forefront of social thought in the 1970s. The unlikely creative force behind the segment was Kilpatrick, the print journalism veteran, who possessed an innate understanding of the entertainment quality of television news.
Assault on the Ivory Tower: Anti-Intellectualism in Coverage of the Hutchins Commission • Stephen Bates • When thirteen intellectuals criticized its performance in 1947, the American press on the whole responded ungraciously. Journalists derided the Commission on Freedom of the Press, commonly called the Hutchins Commission, as an assemblage of professors whose analysis was tainted by self-dealing, irresponsibility, elitism, and impracticality. At a broad level, critics charged that the Commission’s work was shaped by its members’ status as professors. By weighing the news coverage against the Commission’s unpublished documents, this paper finds significant validity in the media’s broad contention: An ivory tower world view ran through the Commission’s proceedings and recommendations.
Yabba Dabba Don’t Forget Your Audience: What The Simpsons Learned from The Flintstones’ Third Season • Jared Browsh, University of Colorado-Boulder • The Simpsons and The Flintstones are irrevocably linked in television history as two of the first successful primetime animated programs. However, after their initial successes, both programs reached a crossroads after the second season concerning the direction of each series. This paper examines the third season of each program to better understand how decisions made by creators, and the networks broadcasting the shows, led to very different outcomes for these two historically significant programs.
Bubbling Motor of Money: Calvin Jacox, the Norfolk Pilot & Guide, and the integration of Tidewater baseball • Brian Carroll, Berry College • This paper seeks to reveal, examine, and understand the role of black sportswriter Cal Jacox in chronicling and promoting baseball’s integration in the Tidewater (Va.) region in the 1950s. For a quarter-century the sports editor for the Norfolk Journal & Guide, Jacox proved a crusader in the fight against discrimination, writing about and helping to foster Black sports and athletes before, during and after integration, to quote his plaque at the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame & Museum.
Frances Buss, Television’s Playgirl: The Groundbreaking Career and Divergent Receptions of Television’s First Female Director • Mike Conway, Indiana University; Alexandra B. Hitchcock • American television’s first female director, Frances Buss, received considerable attention during the medium’s chaotic early years. First portrayed as the pretty girl behind the camera, Buss later became a symbol for pushing through failure and forging her own path in the male dominated world of television technology. Buss’s career provides texture and illumination into the overall image of Rosie the Riveter and the changing work environment for women before, during, and after World War II.
El Gringo, Travel Writing, and Colonization of the Southwest: W. W. H. Davis’ Journalism in New Mexico • Michael Fuhlhage, Wayne State University • This paper reveals the ways Doylestown Democrat correspondent W. W. H. Davis portrayed the newly conquered people of New Mexico for readers in the Eastern United States in his newspaper correspondence and book El Gringo. The study juxtaposes published journalistic travel writing in the early 1850s with his private, confidential writing in letters and journals to assess the interaction between Davis’ social identity, intentions, and journalistic products.
Framing Mexicans in Great Depression Editorials: Riff-Raff to Heroes • Melita Garza, Texas Christian University, Bob Schieffer College of Communication, School of Journalism • This research explores the way three competing daily newspapers in San Antonio, Texas, opined about immigrants during the deep financial crisis of the early Depression years. San Antonio’s independent English-language Express; the Hearst-owned, Light; and the immigrant-owned Spanish-language La Prensa, offered widely divergent conceptions of the American newcomer. Using framing theory, the author identified how early 1930s San Antonio newspapers defined immigration in ways that persist in the national imagination.
Being the Newspaper: Ontological Metaphors and Metonymy at the End of the Newspaper, 1974-1998 • Nicholas Gilewicz, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania • This article analyzes final editions of ten newspapers that closed between 1974 and 1998, during the early phase of ongoing crises facing the newspaper industry. Journalists at these newspapers used the same set of nested metaphors and symbolic metonymy to discuss social and historical roles of their newspapers. Such consistency reinforced newspaper journalists’ tight discursive community and highlighted journalists’ self-proclaimed role as courageous representatives of their communities while hiding the industrial apparatus of the newspaper.
The defeat is a total one!: East German Press Coverage of America’s Space Setbacks • Kevin Grieves, Whitworth University • The Cold War found dramatic expression in the U.S.-Soviet Space Race. The Cold War ideological struggle also played out primarily via the mass media, in particular when journalists covered the successes and setbacks of space missions. This study examines East German press coverage of prominent American space failures from 1957 to 1986, drawing on newly digitized archival holdings. Citing specific cases, the analysis illuminates patterns of propaganda approaches and journalistic techniques.
A short history of the journalistic profile • Grant Hannis • Despite profiles’ contemporary popularity, there has been little scholarly analysis of their historical development. This paper seeks to address this, offering a critical review of a selection of profiles beginning from the earliest days of print journalism. Many of the early profiles give us no sense of actually meeting the person profiled, but throughout history nearly all profiles judge those profiled. We can see in many profiles how reporters create a reality to serve their journalistic needs.
Now We Move to Further Action: The Story of the Notre Dame Sunday Morning Replays • Daniel Haygood, Elon University • From 1959 through 1984, Notre Dame football enjoyed a unique national television presence in college sports. The NCAA limited the amount of games broadcast live and had exclusive rights to negotiations with the television networks. But Notre Dame found a loophole for delayed broadcasts. This research reveals the story behind these Sunday morning replays, the key individuals involved, the elaborate production process, and why they were eventually were taken off the air after 26 years.
The Fish Sticks Logo: The Doomed Rebranding of the New York Islanders • Nicholas Hirshon, Ohio University • Sophisticated conversations about sports logos began in the 1990s. A notable example is the ill-fated rebranding of the National Hockey League’s New York Islanders in 1995. The Islanders unveiled one of the most vilified logos in sports history, depicting a cartoon fisherman clutching a hockey stick. This paper reveals the thought process behind the rebranding campaign through a review of period newspaper articles and oral history interviews with the logo’s designers and former Islanders executives.
Illinois Governor Otto Kerner: A Well-liked, Respected Media Critic • Thomas Hrach, University of Memphis • Illinois Governor Otto Kerner is best known in history as chair of the 1968 National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, which was better known as the Kerner Commission. The commission’s report focused on the riots of the mid-1960s, but it was an important document in journalism history for its pointed criticism of the news media. While much of the recommendations in the Kerner Report were dismissed and never implemented, the chapter on the news media was the exception. It became a catalyst for change in journalism by encouraging the increased coverage of African-Americans in the news media and prodding the news business to hire more minorities to report the news. The Kerner Reports media criticism was taken seriously by the journalism community because Kerner was such a well-liked and respected person with the news media. Kerner actively cultivated the news media and kept them informed about his activities and the activities of the commission. Even after his conviction and prison sentence on corruption charges while governor, Kerner remained a respected person with the news media until the day he died.
Editor, Booster, Citizen, Socialist: Victor L. Berger and His Milwaukee Leader • James Kates, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater • From 1911 to 1929, Victor Berger edited the Milwaukee Leader, a Socialist daily newspaper. Berger advocated a peaceful transition to socialism via the ballot box. When the Leader opposed World War I, it lost its mailing privileges and Berger faced prison. This paper examines the daily operations of the Leader and Berger’s belief that a free press was crucial in fostering socialism. It argues that Berger’s temperament and his booster ethos were unsuited to the capital-intensive world of daily newspapering in the 1920s.
Clearing a Path for Television News: The First Long-Form Newscast at Sacramento’s KCRA • Madeleine Liseblad, Arizona State University • The advent of long-form television news was a turning point for television. Starting in the 1970s, scholars have associated long-form television news with the first half-hour network newscasts. However, long-format news was driven by local television stations, not the networks. This paper examines in-depth the previously virtually ignored first long-form newscast in the nation – KCRA’s Channel 3 Reports – launched in Sacramento on February 20, 1961 at 6 p.m
Exploring The Hero Archetype and Frontier Myth in the Ad Council’s Peace Corps Campaign, 1961 – 1970 • Wendy Melillo, American University • The hero archetype and frontier myth are embedded in the Ad Council’s Peace Corps Campaign. Advertisers use stories with universal appeal to sell products and services. The Ad Council, under the guise of public service, helped the U.S. government fight Communism with messages that encouraged Americans to join the Foreign Service and defend America’s democratic values in a glorious adventure in the Third World.
The Lee Family and Freedom of the Press in Virginia • Roger Mellen, New Mexico State University • The free press clause in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is considered a unique and important part of our American democracy. While the origins of this right are a key to current legal interpretations, there is much misunderstanding about its genesis. This research uses eighteenth-century personal correspondence, published articles, and other archival evidence to demonstrate new connections between the Lee family of Virginia and the constitutional right to a free press.
Saving the Republic: An Editor’s Crusade against Integration • Gwyneth Mellinger, Xavier University • Abstract: Thomas Waring Jr., editor of The News and Courier in Charleston, S.C., offers a case study for segregationist fears of integration and communism in the late 1950s. This paper explores Waring’s campaign, in both editorials and news reporting, against Highlander Folk School and his alma mater, the University of the South, and in defense of a segregationist conception of white democracy.
The Artist as Reporter: Drawing National Identity During the U.S. Civil War • Jennifer Moore, University of Maine • The illustrated press reached a highpoint during the U.S. Civil War. Artists hired as illustrators sketched battles scenes and other war-related imagery for a public eager for news and information. In doing so, pictorial news communicated information that words alone could not. This study interprets pictorials reports on the war vis-à-vis a paradigm shift that reflected more realistic reporting practices. Findings describe how illustrations communicated certain ideologies about nationalism and national identity through flag iconography.
Charles Siepmann: A Forgotten Pioneer of Critical Media Policy Research • Victor Pickard • The contributions of Charles Siepmann (1899-1985), a British-born, American-naturalized media scholar and progressive policy advocate should figure centrally within any revisionist history of the field of communication. Siepmann is a prime example of an early critical thread of communication research: overtly political in his scholarship and frequently engaged with media policy interventions. He was a seminal figure in the early days of the BBC, the primary author of the controversial FCC Blue Book, and also the founding director of one of the United States’ first graduate-level communication programs in 1946 where he taught for over two decades. Siepmann mentored a number of leading broadcast historians and practitioners and authored several influential books, but he was first and foremost a public intellectual of a social democratic orientation, engaging with important policy debates across three countries. Given his historical significance, Siepmann’s legacy deserves closer scholarly attention—as does his continued relevance, particularly within debates about the future of public media. Drawing from Siepmann’s writings, archival materials, and interviews with his former students, this paper situates his scholarship within historical and contemporary contexts by examining his role during the early years of communication scholarship and his participation in significant media policy debates.
The Platform: How Pullman Porters Used Railways to Engage in Networked Journalism • Allissa Richardson, Graduate Student & Lecturer • This essay re-frames the early 20th-century news partnerships of Pullman porters and African-American newspapers as an example of networked journalism that functioned efficiently for decades, well before the Information Age. The Pullman porters and African-American newspapers used the railways as an antecedent to computerized social networks to achieve modern notions of information crowdsourcing and collaborative news editing, which helped shape and convey black political thought after World War I.
Nineteenth Century Women’s Dress Reform: Representations of the Bloomer Costume in North Carolina Newspaper Coverage • Natalee Seely • The bloomer costume came to represent the women’s rights movement in the nineteenth century. Despite claims from North Carolina newspapers that the state was open to dress reform, a textual analysis of North Carolina newspaper coverage found the bloomer dress was typically portrayed negatively for a variety of reasons. Some voices endorsed the bloomer dress for its practicality and comfort, and the outfit was sometimes explicitly linked to the principles of the women’s rights movement.
Here we go again: Seven Decades of Debate But Still No Agreement Over How to Define Violence • Margot Susca, American University • Over the last seven decades, researchers, politicians, and parents have struggled with how to study, regulate, and monitor media violence. Thousands of articles devoted to media violence have been published, the Supreme Court has heard arguments on the constitutionality of laws banning violent material, and legislators and government regulatory agencies have attempted to quantify media effects while weighing how—if at all—to regulate media violence. But what is media violence? The lack of a standard definition leaves in its wake major contemporary issues related to media ratings, local governance, and regulatory policy yet little academic research has studied the history of the debate or its implications for policymakers, parents, researchers. This paper provides a historical analysis of social science and governmental definitions of media violence to help better understand the current issues impacting regulators attempting to find a standardized definition.
A Riot ‘Never Out of Control’: World War II Press, Bamber Bridge, and Collective Memory • Pamela Walck, Ohio University • What began with American GIs trying to get more drinks at Ye Olde Hob Inn, escalated into a racial firefight between white and African American troops on the streets of Bamber Bridge, a small British village in Northwest England. The incident, just a few days after the race riots in Detroit, made headlines in the British and American press, while U.S. military officials attempted to control the story narrative. Along the way, the Battle for Bamber Bridge has forged itself into the collective memory of the village and the region’s citizens even decades later. This paper examines media reports of the riot, government documents, and oral histories to understand how media influence collective memory.
A Strong Sense of Outrage: Stan Strachan, The National Thrift News and The Savings and Loan Crisis • Rob Wells, University of Maryland • This paper examines how a small mortgage industry newspaper, the National Thrift News, defied the trade press norms and served as an aggressive industry watchdog. It first reported on the 1987 Keating Five scandal, an iconic political money story where five U.S. Senators pressured regulators to go easy on a wealthy campaign contributor. The National Thrift News excelled at a time when mainstream media offered lackluster coverage of the savings and loan financial crisis.
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