In this engaging examination of the media's influence on US history and politics, Rodger Streitmatter visits sixteen landmark episodes, from the American Revolution to the present-day fight for gay and lesbian marriage equality. In each of these cases, Streitmatter succinctly illustrates the enormous role that journalism has played in not merely recording this nation's history but also in actively shaping it. Mightier than the Sword offers students and professors a highly readable and accessible alternative to journalism history textbooks. Instead of trying to document every detail in the development of US media through dry, dull lists of names, dates, and headlines, this book focuses on sixteen discrete episodes that illustrate a point that is much larger than the sum of their parts: media have played and continue to play an enormous role in shaping this nation.The fourth edition features an entirely new chapter on the way US media have championed various gay and lesbian rights initiatives, from the 2003 Lawrence vs. Texas sodomy case through the June 2013 Supreme Court decision striking down DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act). Balancing criticism and celebration of news media and exploring both print and electronic platforms, Mightier than the Sword provides students with a sense of the power and responsibility inherent in the institution of journalism.

America's news media are relentlessly criticized as too negative, sensationalistic, profit-oriented, and biased, not to mention unpatriotic and a miserable failure at reflecting the nation's diversity. Rodger Streitmatter makes clear that although much of the criticism is deserved, it obscures the fact that news outlets have also made-and continue to make-many positive contributions to the country's well-being. A Force for Good: How the American News Media Have Propelled Positive Change offers a compelling account of the Fourth Estate's efforts to improve U.S. society. Whether documenting the appalling conditions in mental institutions, exposing financial shenanigans and sex-abuse scandals, or championing an obscure pill as a form of contraception, Streitmatter argues, print and broadcast journalists have propelled significant social topics onto the public agenda and helped build support for change. This text draws on both historical and contemporary examples from a wide range of social contexts; the result is a fascinating tour of American history, social change, and the benefits of a robust media.

America's news media are relentlessly criticized as too negative, sensationalistic, profit-oriented, and biased, not to mention unpatriotic and a miserable failure at reflecting the nation's diversity. Rodger Streitmatter makes clear that although much of the criticism is deserved, it obscures the fact that news outlets have also made-and continue to make-many positive contributions to the country's well-being. A Force for Good: How the American News Media Have Propelled Positive Change offers a compelling account of the Fourth Estate's efforts to improve U.S. society. Whether documenting the appalling conditions in mental institutions, exposing financial shenanigans and sex-abuse scandals, or championing an obscure pill as a form of contraception, Streitmatter argues, print and broadcast journalists have propelled significant social topics onto the public agenda and helped build support for change. This text draws on both historical and contemporary examples from a wide range of social contexts; the result is a fascinating tour of American history, social change, and the benefits of a robust media.

From "Perverts" to "Fab Five" tracks the dramatic change in how the American media have depicted gay people over the last half-century. Each chapter illuminates a particular media product that served as a milestone on the media's journey from demonizing homosexuals some fifty years ago to celebrating gay people--or at least some categories of gay people--today.

The media, Streitmatter argues, have not merely reflected the American public's shift to a more enlightened view of gay people, but they have been instrumental in propelling that change. The book spans the breadth of communication venues. Individual chapters focus on major news stories, entertainment television programs, and mainstream motion pictures that captured the public imagination while, at the same time, sending powerful messages about gay men and lesbians. Ideal for any reader interested in the changing depiction of gay men and lesbians in the media over time, or as required reading in media courses.

From "Perverts" to "Fab Five" tracks the dramatic change in how the American media have depicted gay people over the last half-century. Each chapter illuminates a particular media product that served as a milestone on the media's journey from demonizing homosexuals some fifty years ago to celebrating gay people--or at least some categories of gay people--today.

The media, Streitmatter argues, have not merely reflected the American public's shift to a more enlightened view of gay people, but they have been instrumental in propelling that change. The book spans the breadth of communication venues. Individual chapters focus on major news stories, entertainment television programs, and mainstream motion pictures that captured the public imagination while, at the same time, sending powerful messages about gay men and lesbians. Ideal for any reader interested in the changing depiction of gay men and lesbians in the media over time, or as required reading in media courses.

"Each chapter is a biographical sketch of an influential black woman who has written for American newspapers or television news, including Maria W. Stewart, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Gertrude Bustill Mossell, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Josephine St.Pierre Ruffin, Delilah L. Beasley, Marvel Cooke, Charlotta A. Bass, Alice Allison Dunnigan, Ethel L. Payne, and Charlayne Hunter-Gault."

In this engaging examination of the media's influence on US history and politics, Rodger Streitmatter visits sixteen landmark episodes, from the American Revolution to the present-day fight for gay and lesbian marriage equality. In each of these cases, Streitmatter succinctly illustrates the enormous role that journalism has played in not merely recording this nation's history but also in actively shaping it. Mightier than the Sword offers students and professors a highly readable and accessible alternative to journalism history textbooks. Instead of trying to document every detail in the development of US media through dry, dull lists of names, dates, and headlines, this book focuses on sixteen discrete episodes that illustrate a point that is much larger than the sum of their parts: media have played and continue to play an enormous role in shaping this nation. The fourth edition features an entirely new chapter on the way US media have championed various gay and lesbian rights initiatives, from the 2003 Lawrence vs. Texas sodomy case through the June 2013 Supreme Court decision striking down DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act). Balancing criticism and celebration of news media and exploring both print and electronic platforms, Mightier than the Sword provides students with a sense of the power and responsibility inherent in the institution of journalism.

Streitmatter tells the stories of dissident American publications and press movements of the last two centuries, and of the colorful individuals behind them. From publications that fought for the disenfranchised to those that promoted social reform, "Voices of Revolution" examines the abolitionist and labor press, black power publications of the 1960s, the crusade against the barbarism of lynching, the women's movement, and antiwar journals. Streitmatter also discusses gay and lesbian publications, contemporary on-line journals, and counterculture papers like "The Kudzu" and "The Berkeley Barb" that flourished in the 1960s. "Voices of Revolution" also identifies and discusses some of the distinctive characteristics shared by the genres of the dissident press that rose to prominence -- from the early nineteenth century to the late twentieth century.

For far too long, mainstream journalists and even some media scholars have viewed radical, leftist, or progressive periodicals in America as "rags edited by crackpots." However, many of these dissident presses have shaped the way Americans think about social and political issues.

In 1978, more than 3,500 letters written over a thirty-year friendship between Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok were discovered by archivists. Although the most explicit letters had been burned (Lorena told Eleanor's daughter, "Your mother wasn't always so very discreet in her letters to me"), the find was still electrifying enough to create controversy about the nature of the women's relationship. Historian Rodger Streitmatter has transcribed and annotated more than 300 of those letters,published here for the first time,and put them within the context of the lives of these two extraordinary women, allowing us to understand the role of this remarkable friendship in Roosevelt's transformation into a crusading First Lady.

For more than a century before gay marriage became a hot-button political issue, same-sex unions flourished in America. Pairs of men and pairs of women joined together in committed unions, standing by each other "for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health" for periods of thirty or forty--sometimes as many as "fifty"--years. In short, they loved and supported each other every bit as much as any husband and wife.
In "Outlaw Marriages," cultural historian Rodger Streitmatter reveals how some of these unions didn't merely improve the quality of life for the two people involved but also enriched the American culture.
Among the high-profile couples whose lives and loves are illuminated in the following pages are Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams and Mary Rozet Smith, literary icon Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, author James Baldwin and Lucien Happersberger, and artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg.