History of the Media: Syllabus Fall 2008
This schedule is subject to change depending on events in the news and availability of guest speakers. Unless otherwise noted, readings refer to chapter subheadings in the table of contents of Voices of a Nation. Additional readings from other sources will be assigned on a weekly basis.
THINKING LIKE A HISTORIAN
Week 1 (Aug. 25-29)
Monday: Introductions, overview, media timeline
Wednesday and Friday: Readings: Voices, introduction, pp. xv-xvii. "Whose Turf is the Past?” by Andie Tucher, Columbia Journalism Review, September-October 2004: http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/5/ideas-essay-tucher.asp
"Toward a Troubleshooting
Manual for Journalism History” by Michael Schudson, Journalism and Mass
Communication Quarterly, Autumn 1997, pp. 463-476. To read this article on
the UI Library’s Electronic Reserve:
http://ida.lib.uidaho.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=9712232758
Students will be prompted to enter the barcode number from their Vandal card and
their last name.
Week 2 (Sept. 1-5)
Monday: Labor Day, No Class
Wednesday: The Rise of Objectivity Reading: “Impartiality: Principle or Economics” (Voices, 34); "The Lost Meaning of Objectivity" from the Project for Excellence in Journalism: http://www.concernedjournalists.org/node/186 ; Brent Cunningham, "Re-thinking Objectivity," CJR, July/Aug, 2003: http://www.cjr.org/issues/2003/4/objective-cunningham.asp
An interesting essay by blogger Dan Gillmor called "The End of Objectivity: Version 0.91" http://dangillmor.typepad.com/dan_gillmor_on_grassroots/2005/01/the_end_of_obje.html
TECHNOLOGY: The Printing Press, Television & the Internet
Friday: Print Technology I
VIDEO: "Printing Transforms Knowledge," part of The Day the Universe Changed, hosted by James Burke.
Here are links dealing with the Gutenberg and the history of printing: The Gutenberg Museum, Mainz, Germany (English version) http://www.gutenberg.de/english/index.htm; Gutenberg and His Impact, including digitized pages from the Gutenberg Bible: http://www.gutenbergdigital.de/gudi/eframes/texte/inhalt.htm; And for some new evidence about Gutenberg's invention, see: Gutenberg 'not the father of printing'
Week 3 – (Sept. 8-12)
Monday: Print Technology II
Wednesday: Television
Reading: “Transportation and Communication” (142-151); “Photographs: Question of Technology and Culture” (225); “Electronic Media’s Debut” (345-346); “Radio: What Have They Done with My Child?” (356-361); “Television Technology Emerges from the Wings” (440-442); “Electronic Media and the Global Village” (487-489); “New Technology: Networks in Decline” (524-525); “Technologies of the 1980s” (525-528).
VIDEO: "Big Dream, Small Screen," Philo Farnsworth and the invention of Television. Here's a description of the VIDEO from the PBS web site: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/technology/bigdream/abprogram.html More about Philo Farnsworth: A profile by Neil Postman, from TIME, March 29, 1999, after Farnsworth was named one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th Century: http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/farnsworth.html
Friday: DUE FRIDAY SEPT. 12: BIRTHDAY PAPER GUEST LECTURE
Week 4 (Sept. 15-19)
Monday: The Personal Computer Meets the Internet
Reading: “Computers and an Information Society” (528-530);“Information via the Internet” (530-531).
VIDEO: Nerds 2.01 (Vol. 3: Wiring the World)
For background on PBS series "Nerds" from the birth of the IBM personal computer in 1981and to view a timeline of computing technology: http://www.pbs.org/nerds/; View the famous MacIntosh 1984 commercial here: http://www.uriah.com/apple-qt/1984.html; Read about "The Firefox Revolt" from the February 2005 issue of WIRED: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/firefox.html
VOICES OUTSIDE THE MAINSTREAM: Media and Civil Rights
Wednesday: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolitionist Press
Reading: “Press Development in the Antebellum South” (167-169); “The Abolitionist Movement: Printed Products in the Age of Change” (175-184).
Learn more about slavery in America at this site: http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/; Learn more about William Lloyd Garrison on this PBS Web site: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1561.html and search the Liberator at the Liberator Files
Friday: The Rise and Fall of the Black Press
Roberts & Klibanoff, The Race Beat, 3-23
VIDEO: Soldiers Without Swords
For more about the black press on this PBS web site: http://www.pbs.org/blackpress/
Week 5 (Sept. 22-26)
Monday: Covering the Civil Rights Movement: Emmett Till
“Pleas for Equality and Progress” (227-240); “Reform is My Religion” (283-302); “Black Press Reflects Increased Consumer Power” (442-444); “Civil Rights” (479-481); “New York Times v. Sullivan” (499-501); “Ethnic Media” (563-565).
VIDEO: Eyes on the Prize: Emmett Till Murder Read more about the Eyes on the Prize PBS series: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/E/htmlE/eyesonthep/eyesonthep.htm;
Roberts & Klibanoff, The Race Beat, 61-125; 143-207
For additional information about the PBS documentary, "The Murder of Emmett Till" and updates on the trial: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/peopleevents/e_trial.html; Emmett Till Web site with updates; For the reporting of James Hicks, of the New York Amsterdam News, see: http://www.archipelago.org/vol6-1/hicks.htm
Wednesday: Covering the Civil Rights Movement: School Desegregation
Roberts & Klibanoff, The Race Beat,143-207; 270-300
Friday: VIDEO Eyes on the Prize: Lunch Counter Sit-ins and Mass Demonstrations
Week 6 (Sept. 29-Oct. 3 )
Monday: Covering the Civil Rights Movement: Birmingham
Roberts & Klibanoff, The Race Beat, 222-69; 316-33, 353-407
Original reporting and other background sources for the series Eyes on the Prize: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/resources/
Wednesday: CONFERENCES
Friday: INTERPRETIVE ESSAY DUE CLASS TIME, WED. OCT 3 Times v. Sullivan and the CRM, Prof. Dinah Zeiger. Link to a review of Anthony Lewis's Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment. Link to images of case documents maintained by the U. of Minnesota Law School.
Week 7 (Oct. 6-10)
Legal and Ethical Challenges to the Media: From the Partisan Press to the Pentagon Papers
Monday: Alien & Sedition Acts
"Political Press and National Politics" (75-88).
Wednesday: The Pentagon Papers
“The Pentagon Papers Case” (501-502)
Other readings about legal issues: “Resistance Personified: The Zenger Trial” (34-39); “Book Publishing as a Challenge to Cultural Norms” (110-113); “Critique of the Press,” (278-279); “Tabloids” (376-377); “Media and Government” (429-440); “The Federal Communications Commission” (464-465); “Newspaper Preservation Act” (496-497); ; “Credibility and Ethics” (505-507); Deregulation and the FCC” (523-524); “Technologies and Regulation” (546-549)
Friday: Review session, First Exam
Week 8 (Oct. 13-17)
MONDAY, OCT. 13 FIRST EXAM
Wednesday and Friday: Watergate: Prof. Kenton Bird
John O'Connor, "I'm the Guy They Called Deep Throat" Vanity Fair,
July 2005
Week 9 (20-24)
Appeal to Audiences
Monday: The Penny Press: “Penny Papers in the Metropolis” (116-135); “Evolution of the Penny Press” (161-170); “Mass Press for a Mass Audience” (251-272)
Henry Raymond and the founding of the New York Times, 150 year anniversary special http://www.nytimes.com/specials/150/index.html http://www.mrlincolnandfriends.org/inside.asp?pageID=4&subjectID=4
Wednesday: The New Journalism of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst: "Sensation in the Urban Press" (260-272) More about Pulitzer: http://www.pulitzer.org/ More about Hearst: http://www.zpub.com/sf/history/willh.ht
Friday: Appeal to Elites
Mary Baker Eddy and the Christian Science Monitor http://www.csmonitor.com/aboutus/about_the_monitor.html Harold Ross and The New Yorker http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug02/NewYorker/rosshome2.html The News Hour on PBS http://www.pbs.org/newshour/ww/history.html the Media Unit, headed by correspondent Terence Smith http://www.pbs.org/newshour/ww/smith.html On-line magazines, Slate and Salon: "Survivors of the Fray: While most dot-com media experiments failed, Microsoft-backed Slate thrived—though not as first envisioned," by Nina Shapiro, Seattle Weekly, Feb. 4-10, 2004; http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0405/040204_news_slate.php
Week 10 (Oct. 27-31)
Media and Politics
Monday: The Conservative Resurgence and the Press (James Brian McPherson)
Wednesday: Rush Limbaugh, the Republican Revolution of 1994
Visit Limbaugh's home page: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/today.guest.html
A Mother Jones article by Stephen Talbot, the producer of the Frontline documentary first broadcast in 1995: http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1995/05/talbot.html
NYT article, "As Talk Radio Wavers, Bush Moves to Firm Up Support
Readings: “Economic Resistance Turns Political” (41-45); “Congressional Proceedings Secret” (46-47); “Constitutional Politics and the Press” (67-72); “Media and Government” (405-411); “The House Un-American Activities Commission” (465-470); “Television Goes to the Elections” (470-472); “Television, Politics and Democracy” (555-559).
Television and the Public Interest, a speech by FCC Chairman Newton Minow, 1961: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/newtonminow.htm
Friday: No regular class. Office hours until noon
Muckrakers & Reform
Week 11 (Nov. 3-7)
Monday: Muckrakers: Who Were They? Who Are They?
Reading: Voices, Chapter 11, "Progressivism and World War I," especially, "Mass-Market Muckraking," pp. 310-318.
Wednesday: Muckrakers: Ida Tarbell & Standard Oil
Friday: Appeal to Middle Class Reform through Photography
Readings about the documentary tradition in photography: Voices of a Nation: “Photography and Pictoral Illustration” (199-203); “Photojournalism” (411-415). Communication in History (reserve reading): "Early Photojournalism," pp. 178-186, and "The News Photography," pp. 202-206. Read more about the photographers covered in this lecture:
Propoganda & Censorship: Reporting at War
Week 12 (Nov. 10-14)
Monday: World War I Readings: “Control of Information During the War” (323-334); “Media Reaction to the War” (199-342); “Correspondents at the Front” (342-345);“A Radio War” (419-429); ; “Government News Management in Modern War” (531-532).
Wednesday: World War II Learn more about Frank Capra and the "Why We Fight Series" http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol2no1/Capra1.html Eric Alterman, "Burns's War: What Is It Good For?
Friday: Vietnam “Covering Vietnam” (481-487) Learn more about the PBS series "Vietnam: A Television History" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/
Week 13 (Nov. 17-21)
Monday: Gulf War I, Kuwait Video: War Spin Reading: "Public Relations: A Corporate Necessity (371-373);"Media and Public Relations" (462-463); "Press Pools, the Persian Gulf, and Panama" (532-539)
Wednesday: Gulf War II, Iraq
Columbia Journalism Review's Companion web site for Reporting Iraq
Interview with journalists who contributed to Reporting Iraq
Frontline link to journalist who report Iraq
Friday: DUE Friday. NOV. 21 BIOGRAPHY PAPER
Week 14 (Nov. 24-28) FALL BREAK
Week 15 (Dec. 1-5)
Monday: Gulf War II, Iraq, continued\
Columbia Journalism Review "Blogging the Long War"
Frontline program: California National Guardsmen document the war from their perspective
Wednesday: Review session
FRIDAY DEC. 5 2nd EXAM
Week 16 (Dec. 8-12)
Monday, Dec. 8: CONFERENCES
DUE WED. DEC. 10 SCHOLARLY ARTICLE REVIEW PAPER
Friday, Dec. 12: Office Hours
FINAL MEETING TIME: 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 16 Exam Returned