"Time, Change, and the American Newspaper" focuses on newspapers as organizations, examining the role of change in the newspaper industry and providing a model from which to view and respond to change. Authors George Sylvie and Patricia D. Witherspoon discuss environmental and organizational influences on contemporary newspapers, and they analyze newspapers within the larger context of all organizations. This more general perspective provides insights into the nature of change, the change process, the rationale for organizational changes, resistance to such changes, and initiation and implementation strategies.
In its examination of change, this volume explores the causes of newspaper change, how newspaper change takes shape, and when change does not work. This consideration sets the stage for detailed case studies examining the roles of new technology, product, and people as change agents in newspapers. The discussion concludes with the impact of change--or lack of it--on the contemporary newspaper industry and the subsequent impact of newspaper change on society. Sylvie and Witherspoon propose future directions of change and of newspaper decision-making processes pertaining to change, and they offer suggestions for changes in newspaper structures and thought processes.
Providing a sound, theoretically-based approach to the topic of change and American newspapers, this volume is essential reading for educators and students in journalism, media/newsroom management, media economics, organizational behavior/communication, and related areas. It also provides a wealth of insights and practical knowledge for newspaper publishers, editors, and practicing journalists.

Comments on digital news stories and on social media play an increasingly important role in public discourse as more citizens communicate through online networks. The reasons for eliminating comments on news stories are plentiful. Off-topic posts and toxic commentary have been shown to undermine legitimate news reporting. Yet the proliferation of digital communication technology has revolutionized the setting for democratic participation. The digital exchange of ideas and opinions is now a vital component of the democratic landscape. Marie K. Shanahan's book argues that public digital discourse is crucial component of modern democracy-one that journalists must stop treating with indifference or detachment-and for news organizations to use journalistic rigor and better design to add value to citizens' comments above the social layer. Through original interviews, anecdotes, field observations and summaries of research literature, Shanahan explains the obstacles of digital discourse as well as its promises for journalists in the digital age.

This book examines the disruptive nature of Trump news - both the news his administration makes and the coverage of it - related to dominant paradigms and ideologies of U.S. journalism. By relying on conceptualizations of media memory and "othering" through news coverage that enhances socio-conservative positions on issues such as immigration, the book positions this moment in a time of contestation. Contributors ranging from scholars, professionals, and media critics operate in unison to analyze today's interconnected challenges to traditional practices within media spheres posed by Trump news. The outcomes should resonate with citizens who rely on journalism for civic engagement and who are active in social change

Some of the bravest actions of journalists are unknown, obscured by the passage of time, hidden by veils of anonymity or buried by systematic repression. "Profiles in Journalistic Courage" corrects this imbalance. With few exceptions, the stories told in this collection are unfamiliar. In the words of Richard Whelan on Robert Capa's vision of the Spanish Civil War, these tales are drawn from the edge of things. Most of the people highlighted here are journalists who worked on the margins of popularity, who blazed new and solitary paths, and who left fleeting legacies.

Courageous journalists were not always thanked for their pioneering efforts. Jealousy, political disagreements, and differing conceptions of journalism sometimes fueled criticism of some of those dealt with in this volume. To complicate the subject further, brave journalists do not always act for reasons that win popularity or acclaim. Actions with laudable consequences are sometimes the result of egoism, stubbornness and ignorance, no less than selflessness, prudence, and principle. These psychological dimensions are not avoided in these profiles.

In "Yesterday" David Copeland examines the tangled legacy of the trial of John Peter Zenger. Graham Hodges unearths the story of David Ruggles, an African-American journalist and abolitionist. Pamela Newkirk recalls the life and work of Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Pierre Albert explores the journalism of the French Resistance. Bernard L. Stein and Hank Klibanoff describe the work and motives of the civil rights movement. The volume covers the journalism of commitment from Northern Ireland to Native American tribes. It closes with an extended essay by James Boylan on varied perspectives on different aspects of courage in journalism, from the capacity to resist threats to the courage to tell people what they may not want to hear or read.

The links between distinctive political regimes and media systems are undeniable. As Siebert, Peterson and Schramm wrote (1956: 1) 60 years ago: 'the press always takes on the form and coloration of the social and political structures within which it operates'. Nevertheless, today's world and politics are completely different from the bipolar era that inspired the ground breaking Four Theories of the Press. What are the main changes and continuities that have driven the study of politics and the media in the last decades? How to approach this interaction in the light of the challenges that democracy is facing or the continuing technological revolution that at times hampers the media? This provocative book explores the main premises that have guided the study of politics and the media in the last decades. In so doing, it gives the reader key analytical tools to question the sustainability of past categorizations that no longer match up with current developments of both, political regimes and the media. In searching for clarification about current discrepancies between democracies and media's distinctive structures or purposes, Four Theories of the Press: 60 Years and Counting puts forward an alternative premise: the political-media complex.

During the past two centuries a vibrant prison press has chronicled life behind bars in American prisons, championed inmate causes, and challenged those in authority who sought to silence it. At its apex, several hundred periodicals were published by and for inmates. Unlike their peers who passed their sentences stamping out license plates, these convicts spent their days like reporters in any community-looking for the story. Yet their own story, the lengthy history of their unique brand of journalism, has remained largely unknown. In "Jailhouse Journalism," James McGrath Morris presents the history of this medium, the lives of the men and women who brought it to life, and the controversies that often surround it.

The dramatic history of prison journalism has included many famous, notorious, and unique personalities such as Robert Morris, the "financier of the America Revolution"; the Younger Brothers of the Jesse James gang; Julian Hawthorne, the only son of Nathaniel Hawthorne; men of the radical Industrial Workers of the World (IWW); Charles Chapin, famed city editor of New York's "Evening World" until he murdered his wife; Dr. Frederick Cook, North Pole explorer whose claim to have been the first to reach the pole is still debated today; Tom Runyon, who won a place for himself in history with an Underwood; and Wilbert Rideau, an illiterate teenaged murderer who raised prison journalism to the pinnacle of achievement.

In his new introduction Morris addresses the spread of prison journalism into other forms of media, such as radio and the Internet. He discusses the conflicts between those who publish jailhouse news and those who would wish to control, or eliminate it altogether.

This book explores how journalists at local metro papers in a south-western China metropolis give meaning to their work and how these meanings are shaped by the specific social environment within which these journalists operate. These metro papers provide the bulk of daily news to the general public in China, yet are often understudied compared to the country's party news outlets. Informed by fieldwork in four metro newspapers, the book puts forward a grounded theory for exploring journalists' occupational culture: the aspiration-frustration-reconciliation framework.

This volume offers a historical, philosophical, and practical critique of public and civic journalism--a movement that gained momentum in the final decade of the 20th century. During that period, proponents of the movement have published nearly a dozen books expanding upon and expounding the virtues of journalism, seeking to repair what is thought to be the torn social, political, and moral fabric in America. Although previous works have established a strong practical underpinning for public and civic journalism, none has examined its philosophical roots or challenged its methodology and grounding in neoliberal constructs. This volume does just that, tracing its origins in early philosophy to the current newsroom policies and practices that conflict with traditional constructs in libertarian press theory.
"Twilight of Press Freedom" postulates that institutionalized journalism is fading away and world journalism--prompted by the people--is veering toward more order and social harmony, and away from the traditional idea of the great value of press freedom. The volume provides a critical examination of the trend toward public journalism and considers how press freedom will be impacted by this trend in coming years. Scholars and students in journalism, public opinion, and media studies will find this book insightful and invaluable.

The events of 1989 were the raw material of great reporting. They revealed the power of journalism. Long before people in Central and Eastern Europe liberated themselves, they discovered democratic freedom, putting to print their own ideas and chronicling events of the day. Indeed, long before they had democracies in law, they had imagined them on paper.

In the Solidarity network that produced books and leaflets and news bulletins, in the essays of Vaclav Havel, in the samizdat publishing house in Budapest that used a portable printing machine, Eastern Europeans demonstrated the organic link between journalism and self-government. They showed how journalism nurtures the imagination, dialogue, and honesty that are basic to democratic life.

If history had ended in 1989, there would be cause for easy optimism. The changes that swept Central and Eastern Europe passed with relatively little bloodshed. But agonies of the former Yugoslavia, convulsions of the former Soviet Union, and enduring battles with censors and would-be censors bedevil emerging democracies. Not only does much remain for journalists to cover in Central and Eastern Europe, in some places there the fate of journalism is still an open question. For all these reasons, Reporting the Fall of European Communism explores, not only the events of 1989, but new stories that have emerged in Central and Eastern Europe over the past decade. This volume will be of interest to media professionals, academics and others with an interest in the power of journalism.

Get the latest information on new developments in copyright law This timely volume sheds light on the important legal issues that influence the scholarly publishing world. The often-confusing field of publishing law--including copyright, licensing, liability, electronic publishing, and taxation--is going through an unprecedented upheaval as we move into the twenty-first century. Publishing and the Law: Current Legal Issues offers clear, current explanations of the implications of recent laws and technologies and predicts what further changes to expect. Featuring legal, business, and publishing experts, Publishing and the Law discusses the wide-ranging implications of the decline of fair use, the rise of software licensing, the Communications Decency Act, and such landmark legal cases as LaMacchia, Feist, and Matthew Bender. Questions of ownership, fair use, and licensing--historically a problem for authors such as Twain and Dickens--have become exacerbated by the fact that information is no longer static, but rather fluid and transportable. Publishing and the Law addresses the vital questions of interest to librarians, publishers, and scholars, including: How will changing technologies affect the legal status of libraries, universities, authors, and publishers? What are the latest trends in liability for authors and publishers? How does anti-trust law affect library budgets? Why is copyright giving way to licensing, and what does that mean for libraries? How has the definition of fair use changed? Do attempts to censor the Internet abrogate First Amendment rights? How does electronic publishing force changes to the rules that worked for traditional printed books and journals?In an age of advancing technology, Congress and the courts will be called upon with more and more frequency to maintain a balance between the copyright holder's economic interests and society's right to have access to information. Librarians, university administrators, authors, and publishers can benefit from Publishing and the Law: Current Legal Issues to help them understand current trends in intellectual property law.

Martha Gellhorn was one of the twentieth century's greatest war correspondents. The Face of War is a selection of her reports, on the conflicts in Spain, Finland, China and World War II, with later reports on Vietnam, Israel and Central America.

The invention and spread of newspapers in the seventeenth century had a profound effect on early modern European culture and politics. The European pattern for the delivery and consumption of political information provided the model for the rest of the world. However, the transition to printed news was neither rapid nor easy and a greater circulation of news had widely varying effects.
Recent research has revealed much about the origins and development of news publishing in each of its European settings. This book is the first to bring this research together in comprehensive survey. The international contributors to this volume study all of the most important information markets in Europe. Topics covered include: * the relation between printed and manuscript news
* role of censorship mechanisms
* effects of politics on reading and publishing
* effects of reading on contemporary politics
What emerges from this research is a new view of political information as an enterprise, and of the products of information as commodities circulating far and wide.

This book offers an analysis of journalists' professional views against a variety of political, economic, social, cultural, and linguistic contexts. Based on data gathered for the Worlds of Journalism Study, which conducted surveys with more than 27,000 journalists in 67 countries, the authors explore aspects such as linguistic and religious influences on journalists' identities, journalists' views of development journalism, epistemic issues, as well as the relationship between journalism and democracy. Further, the book provides a history of the evolution of the Worlds of Journalism Study, as well as the challenges of conducting such comparative work across a wide range of contexts. A critical review by renowned comparative studies scholar Jay Blumler offers food for thought for future endeavours. This unprecedented collaborative effort will be essential reading for scholars and students of journalism who are interested in comparative approaches to journalism studies and who want to explore the wide variety of journalism cultures that exist around the globe. It was originally published as a special issue of Journalism Studies.

As the visual component of contemporary media has overtaken the verbal, visual reportage has established a unique and extremely significant role in 21st-century culture. Julianne Newton has prepared this comprehensive analysis of the development of the role of visual reportage as a critical player in the evolution of our understanding of ourselves, others, and the world. "The Burden of Visual Truth" offers a first assessment of the role of visual journalism within the context of the complex, cross-disciplinary pool of literature and ideas required for synthesis.
Newton approaches the subject matter from several perspectives, examining the theoretical and ideological bases for visual truth, particularly as conveyed by the news media, and applying relevant research on photojournalism and reality imagery to contemporary newspaper, broadcast, and internet professional practice. She extends visual communication theory by proposing an ecology of the visual for 21st century life and developing a typology of human visual behavior. Scholars in visual studies, media studies, journalism, nonverbal communication, cultural history, and psychology will find this analysis invaluable as a comprehensive base for studying reality imaging and human visual behavior. The volume also is appropriate for journalism and media studies coursework at the undergraduate and graduate levels. With its conclusions about the future of visual reportage, "The Burden of Visual Truth" also will be compelling reading for journalism and mass communication professionals concerned with improving media credibility and maintaining a significant course for journalism in the 21st century. For all who seek to understand the role of visual media in the formation of their views of the world and of their own identities, this volume is a must-read.

A major addition to the psychoanalytic casebook literature, Errant Selves: A Casebook of Misbehavior is a collection of case studies dedicated to the psychoanalytic understanding and treatment of behavior disorders. The contributors to this volume explore cases of perversion, delinquency, and addiction in which the misbehavior at issue served primarily to ward off painful affects or states of dysphoria in order to achieve a basic integrity of the self. For these patients, the pathway to self-cohesion entailed the florid acting out typical of narcissistic behavior disorders.
Clinical readers of all persuasions will be intrigued by treatment narratives that chronicle the special challenges of working with patients who, in Goldberg's words, "were neither unitary selves nor persons with an easy ability to bolster or reconstitute themselves in socially acceptable ways." Of special interest is the contributors' sensitivity to what they missed with these troubled and troubling patients; they recount examples of skewed focus, of strained rationalization, even of glaring clinical omission, all of which suggest that the patients' psychic splits activated parallel splits on the part of their therapists.
What emerges from the contributors' efforts, then, is very much a casebook of our time. It extends the purview of psychoanalysis to the developmental history and psychodynamics of disavowal; explores the analytic management of delinquent, perverse, and addicted patients; and examines the analyst's subjective presence in these treatments, including his or her potential for self-deception and collusion. And it does so in the context of probing a theoretical issue of continuing practical import: whether or not psychoanalytic therapy is best served by viewing the patient as a unitary individual with a coherent sense of agency and an integrated set of values and goals.

From this book, you will gain an understanding of the global media marketplace - the technology, the players and the issues. The role of news agencies, sources and networks are explored covering the issues of ethics, global media ownership and control. Find out how journalists are using the web and learn even newer ways to collect and communicate information.
Essential reading for today's practising and trainee journalists. John Herbert examines the global environment in which journalists operate and describes the latest technology and its impact on print, broadcast and online journalism practice.
Practising Global Journalism is a unique overview of the profession, providing a comparative study of journalism practice worldwide. Case studies are drawn from Europe, Australia, the Asia Pacific, South Asia, China, Africa and the Americas.
International case studies compare journalism practice worldwide
Understand how the digital revolution is affecting journalism globally
Gain first hand knowledge from a renowned expert in this field

Joan Bakewell has led a varied, sometimes breathless life: she has been a teacher, copywriter, studio manager, broadcaster, journalist, the government's Voice of Older People and chair of the theatre company Shared Experience. She has written four radio plays, two novels and an autobiography - The Centre of The Bed. Now in her 80s, she is still broadcasting. Though it may look as though she is now part of the establishment - a Dame, President of Birkbeck College, a Member of the House of Lords as Baroness Bakewell of Stockport - she's anything but and remains outspoken and courageous. In Stop the Clocks, she muses on all she has lived through, how the world has changed and considers the things and values she will be leaving behind. Stop the Clocks is a book of musings, a look back at what she was given by her family, at the times in which she grew up - ranging from the minutiae of life such as the knowledge of how to darn and how to make a bed properly with hospital corners, to the bigger lessons of politics, of lovers, of betrayal. She talks of the present, of her family, of friends and literature - and talks too of what she will leave behind. This is a thoughtful, moving and spirited book as only could be expected from this extraordinary woman.

The future of journalism isn't what it used to be. As recently as the mid-1960s, few would have predicted the shocks and transformations that have swept through the news business in the last three decades: the deaths of many afternoon newspapers, the emergence of television as people's primary news source and the quicksilver combinations of cable television, VCRs and the Internet that have changed our ways of reading, seeing, and listening.

The essays in this volume seek to illuminate the future prospects of journalism. Mindful that grandiose predictions of the world of tomorrow tend to be the fantasies and phobias of the present written large-in the 1930s and 1940s magazines such as Scribner's, Barron's, and Collier's forecast that one day we would have an airplane in every garage-the authors of What's Next? have taken a more careful view.

The writers start with what they know-the trends that they see in journalism today-and ask where will they take us in the foreseeable future. For some media, such as newspapers, the visible horizon is decades away. For others, particularly anything involving the Internet, responsible forecasts can look ahead only for a matter of years. Where the likely destinations of present trends are not entirely clear, the authors have tried to pose the kinds of questions that they believe people will have to address in years to come.

While being mindful of the tremendous influence of technology, one must remember that computers, punditry, or market share will not ordain the future of journalism. Rather, it will be determined by the sum of countless actions taken by journalists and other media professionals. These essays, with their hopes and fears, cautions and enthusiasms, questions and answers, are an effort to create the best possible future for journalism. This volume will be of interest to media professionals, academics and others with an interest in the future of journalism.

The public sphere is said to be in crisis. Dumbing down, tabloidization, infotainment and spin are alleged to contaminate it, adversely affecting the quality of political journalism and of democracy itself. There is a pervasive pessimism about the relationship between the media and democracy, and widespread concern for the future of the political process. This book challenges that orthodoxy, arguing instead for an alternative, more optimistic evaluation of the contemporary public sphere and its contribution to the political process. Brian McNair argues not only that the quantity of political information in mass circulation has expanded hugely in the late-20th century, but that political journalism has become steadily more rigorous and effective in its criticism of elites, more accessible to the public, and more thorough in its coverage of the political process. The book combines textual analysis and interviews with political journalists, editors, presenters and documentary makers. In separate chapters devoted to the political news agenda, the political interview, punditry, public access media and spin doctoring, McNair considers whether dumbing down is a genuinely new trend in poli

"Written in 1965 about a same-sex sexual scandal that occurred in 1955 in Boise, Idaho, John Gerassi's classic study depicts both middle America's traditional response to homosexuality and an era in the country's history before the modern gay rights movement really got underway. Because much of what Gerassi wrote about persists in today's struggles over gay and lesbian issues, his book still has much to tell us about how contemporary society reacts to, and misunderstands, homosexuality."-Peter Boag On the morning of November 2, 1955, the people of Boise, Idaho, were stunned by a screaming headline in the Idaho Daily Statesman, THREE BOISE MEN ADMIT SEX CHARGES. Time magazine picked up the story, reporting that a "homosexual underworld" had long operated in Idaho's staid capital city. The Statesman led the hysteria that resulted in dozens of arrests-including some highly placed members of the community-and sentences ranging from probation to life imprisonment. Peter Boag's Foreword places the book in historical perspective, summarizing the popular psychological theories and legal conceptions that helped to shape Gerassi's research. He discusses advances in Idaho's public approach to homosexuality and ways in which the provincialism chronicled by Gerassi persists to this day.

In her colorful insider's account, Sue Bridge analyzes the bitter struggle that ensued when a sophisticated entrepreneurial leadership tried to diversify and reposition The Christian Science Monitor beyond the failing newspaper -- into radio, the Internet, multimedia publishing, and the highest ticket item of all -- The Monitor Channel, a CNN-style, 24-hour news and public affairs channel. The entire enterprise came crashing down in a cloud of confusion about media realities and costs in the electronic age, rumors of illegal use of funds (which turned out not to be true), and accusations of a misbegotten sense of mission. Using the Monitor's story as a focus, Sue Bridge raises fundamental questions about how and whether the public's interest can be served in an age of spiraling costs, competition between print and electronic media, changing public tastes, and undeclared media wars.

This unique collection of extracts is taken from women's journals and magazines - both British and American - on the eve of the twentieth century. Arranged by subject, the collection focuses on what this pivotal moment represented for women and includes an introduction to women's journalism of the period.
The rapidly changing conditions then surrounding a woman's world are illustrated here by sections on:
* monarchy
* women and war
* colonial women
* the politics of emancipation
* and girlhood.

What's fair? It is an old question in journalism. In 1999, it seems more difficult to answer than ever. The cycle of story, spin, and counterspin that surrounds the White House is only the most obvious part of the problem. In the past 25 years, the practice of journalism has changed enormously--particularly in the United States. The demarcation of public and private life that once ruled certain kinds of stories out-of-bounds has eroded, leaving reporters with the unenviable challenge of having to cover events whose seaminess inevitably taints all who touch them. Commercial pressures, and a tidal wave of information and entertainment media, have engulfed the news business--leaving the definitions of journalism and journalistic standards vague and uncertain. And the technology of news reporting is speeding up news cycles in ways that leave little time for sober and measured judgments. "What's Fair?" is a collection of essays from experts in the field that are sure to spark compelling questions and ideas about journalism and its place in our time. In "Fairness--A Struggle," journalists explore a subject that they normally share only with close friends and colleagues--their own struggles with fairness that occurred in places as different as South Africa, Washington, and the South Bronx. In "Fairness--A History," nine contributors examine the history of the fairness question, specifically the establishment of the Hutchins Commission report of 1947, which is evaluated here by a historian, a journalist and a First Amendment authority. In a comparative vein, two authorities on international communications law examine British regulations for fairness in broadcasting at the end of the 20th century. In "Fairness--A Goal," contributors explore what struggles for fairness mean in a variety of contexts, from American newsrooms to post-Communist Poland to Northern Ireland. Many discussions of fairness are either numbingly abstract or impossibly righteous. To avoid those hazards, Robert Giles and Robert Snyder have grounded this volume in stories--the kind of stories journalists tell each other and the kind of stories people tell about journalism. This volume is a testament to journalism that is free yet fair, probing yet credible and authoritative in content yet open to many voices. "Robert Giles" is editor-in-chief of "Media Studies Journal," senior vice president of the Freedom Forum and executive director of Media Studies Center. Formerly the editor and publisher of "The Detroit News," he is the author of "Newsroom Management: A Guide to Theory and Practice. "Robert W. Snyder" is editor of the "Media Studies Journal," a historian, and most recently author of "Transit Talk: New York's Bus and Subway Workers Tell Their Stories. He has taught at Princeton University and New York University, from which he holds a doctorate in history. ""

Thirty years ago American political life was all relentless, painful, and confounding: the Tet Offensive brought new intensity to the Vietnam War; President Lyndon Johnson would not seek re-election; Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated; student protests rocked France; a Soviet invasion ended "socialism with a human face" in Czechoslovakia; the Mexican government massacred scores of peaceful demonstrators; and Richard M. Nixon was elected president. Any one of the events of 1968 bears claim to historical significance. Together they set off shock waves that divided Americans into new and contending categories: hawks and doves, old and young, feminists and chauvinists, straights and hippies, blacks and whites, militants and moderates. As citizens alive to their own time and as reporters responsible for making sense of it, journalists did not stand aside from the conflicts of 1968. In their lives and in their work, they grappled with momentous issues--war, politics, race, and protest.

The contributors to 1968: Year of Media Decision establish not only what journalism meant in 1968, but also gauge the distance and direction that news reporting has traveled since then. There are contrasting essays by David Halberstam, a former war correspondent, and Winant Sidle, a retired major general; former reporter and author Jules Witcover, Jack Newfield on Robert Kennedy's final hour, Curtis Gans on the "Dump Lyndon Johnson" campaign, Dan T. Carter on George C. Wallace, Tom Wicker on Richard Nixon, and Robert Shogan on the new political order. In "Race" Pamela Newkirk discusses the origins and impact of the Kerner report. Robert Lipsyte explores the 1968 Olympics. Robert Friedman details the Columbia University strike, Claude-Jean Bertrand examines the French protests, and there are essays by Mary Holland on Northern Ireland, Madeline K. Albright on the press of the Prague Spring, Suzanne Levine on "the bra that was never burned," and Raymundo Riva Palacio on the Mexican media.

With the perspective of thirty years we can see that the events of 1968, which once seemed to erupt out of nowhere, were the consequences of powerful trends. At the same time gauging the distance between then and now can help make it clear which aftershocks of 1968 are with us and which collectively, have disappeared. This volume tells us important things about not only where journalism has been but where it is going.

This lively new study covers the dramatic expansion of the press from the seventeenth century to the mid nineteenth century. Hannah Barker explores the factors behind the rise of newspapers to a major force helping to reflect and shape public opinion and altering the way in which politics operated at every level of English life. "Newspapers, Politics and English Society 1695-1855" provides a unique insight into the political and social history of eighteenth and nineteenth century England as well as an important study of the history of the media.