The Majority of the members or our presentation group are Media Studies Majors, and therefore have had a bit of background in the history of journalism. We have thus decided to individually address some elements addressed (or missed) in Michael Schudson’s chapter “Where News Came From: The History of Journalism.” In order to establish a basic discourse about this chapter there are a few very important things to take note of:

1)    This is a history of American Journalism, not all Journalism (ironically American Journalism does not much concern itself with global issues, so why should its history?).

2)    The idea of Journalistic Objectivity is relatively new, driven more by profit and the rise in popularity of scientific thought or as stated by Schudson, “…objectivity seemed a natural and progressive ideology for an aspiring occupational group at a moment when science was God, efficiency was cherished, and increasingly prominent elites judged partisanship a vestige of the tribal nineteenth century (Schudson, p. 82).”  (This should remind you of Heilbroner’s “soft determinism.”)

3)    This Chapter does not address two of the most pivotal moments in American Journalism in the past 50 years Vietnam (possibly one it’s empowering) and the Clinton era Telecommunications Act of 1996 (possibly one of its most emasculating).

4)    Schudson also does a wonderful job of explaining American Journalism’s and Newspaper’s dependency upon advertising revenue and a paying readership. This calls into question what will happen to objectivity and the News when it costs nothing.

5)    It is important to note the reference to Hegel’s idea that the morning news has become a substitute for morning prayers for both its social implications (think about Eisenstein and McArthur’s  reference to the rise of secular humanism) as well as its cognitive effects (think about Havelock, Eisenstein and McLuhan).

Here are some ideas that the individuals in our group came up with:

Connection to public sphere and the news:

Since we have discussed ‘public sphere ’ through emergence from the ‘coffee house’ in seventeenth century Britain, it is also essential to point out how we define public sphere surrounded by various news media today, specifically as related to the reading Where news came from; the history of Journalism‘ . Schudson distinguishes differences between ‘public’ by Habermas’ concern and a ‘community’ formulated by Anderson’s idea. Habermas views the public sphere as “a social space where individuals gathered to discuss their common public affairs and to organize against arbitrary and oppressive forms of social and public power.” Anderson, on the other hand, sees the news in a more expansive view as “public construction of particular images of self, community, and nations.’(Schudson, p. 69) The media is a space of public discussion, however, it is also invaded by private interests, corporations, and oppressive societal norms. It creates an area to talk about general concerns and to fix problems through political action, by communal decision making. The public sphere is normally composed of the bourgeois class in Habermas’ view. It is often formed by dominant elites too and presented ideas of mostly private interest rather than common interest. Often, certain excluded groups of individuals had limited participation in its power relation. Public sphere transitioned from public interest to private as companies and large firms began to dictate societal interests. News media’s role has been transformed from facilitating rational discourse and debate into shaping, constructing, and limiting public discourse to those themes validated and approved by media corporations. It also raises an issue for consideration of how political and democratic responsibility on the part of the media institutions and journalists is reflected by the need to appeal to a given audience

.- Jeonmin Woo

Black Box Fallacy: Is it all going to turn into one Black Box, or a bunch of little Black Boxes?

In the reading we see the progression of journalism and news.  How news began by word of mouth and moved to small niches.  Eventually these niches turn into big newspapers and the biggest newspapers become large media corporations.  In today’s society it can be argued that the media and news the public receives is controlled by a few.  The power of the media lies in the hands of those with the biggest corporations.  This being said, it gives way to not only what we receive as our news but how we receive it.  People want to be able to get their news faster and faster each year and as new mediums are created to get media faster it seems that the public is heading toward what Henry Jenkins claims is the Black Box Fallacy.  This is the idea that all media will be able to be accessed through a single black box.  This box will hold everything we need on a daily basis including our news. Eventually there will be no newspapers, and then no TVs and then no computers and then THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT!!

– Shane Vereen

A bit of History:

Benedict Anderson argues that newspapers provided (along with novels) the “technical means for ‘re-presenting’ the kind of imagined community that it is the nation.” (Anderson 25)  While the importance and role of the newspaper is certainly up for debate, the history of the newspaper itself is quite unique.  And while a simple chronology of the newspaper would suffice in providing background information, it is in the context of Robert Park’s idea that newspapers can be conceived as a “common carrier, like the railway or the post office,” (Park 276) that their history becomes integral in understanding mans relationship to information.

The origin of newspapers can be traced quite simply to newsletters, means of spreading information from one particular person to several others.  The first successful newsletter in America was the Boston News Letter, published by its postmaster and editor. The earliest American newspapers refrained from politics, informing readers primarily on day-to-day events and the politics of London without commentary.  As political tensions grew in the 1760’s newspapers no longer remained out of politics, and instead became centers of information and discord on the side of the Americans in their conflict with Britain.  Newspapers changed rapidly, in large part because, as Schudson points, out Printers invented newspapers as they went along. (71)

The most familiar looking newspapers would be the Yellow Journalism (sensationalist papers emphasizing pictures and headlines over research and discourse) papers created by the likes of William Randolf Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer.  The commercialization of newspapers, the use of newsboys, the active competition for readers, and the dependence on advertising capitalized in the idea that news or information was a commodity people would pay for.  What is the cost of such commercialization?  Horace Greeley, the famed newspaper editor, noticed that no matter what, an individuals’ greatest interest is himself, but when combined with rapid growth and commercialization newspapers must transform from accounts of individuals, to broad, impersonal accounts that somehow manage to remain relevant to everyman. (Park 277)

-Jessica Knudtzon

How the media has changed our thought process:

The media is the engine that gives individuals news.  The media, which consists of journalism, newspapers, television, the Internet, etc, are technological advancements that have changed the way people acquire knowledge and information.  The rise of the media relates to Eisenstein’s view about print culture: that the discovery of the printer allowed, for the first time, the ability to publish hundreds of copies that we alike, worldwide.  Like the print culture, the media is a form of technology that has allowed people from all over the world to read, listen, and see the various forms of events and issues that occurs around the world.  The media is a powerful technological force that can change the way society perceives information.  There are only a few giant media conglomerates that control what viewers obtain as news; as a result, these media corporations have immense power to control and dictate people’s views and ideologies about the events and issues that occur throughout the world.  While the media is able to influence and sway the viewer’s attention, people are also able to establish their personal opinions, values, and ideologies about the news that is given to them.  The media allows people to question information given to them; but also, the media has become primary source for individuals to learn and expand their knowledge.

-Emily Shibata

New Media and its affects on war/war coverage

Schudson touches on the discussion of new media and its affect on politics and on journalism, however, what I found interesting in his argument regarding journalists’ new found place in American news coverage, was the affect of new media on war.  In the 1960s-70s, a time in America’s history, which might be defined as a period of narcissism, revolution and discovery, it was also defined by the Vietnam War.  This is due in part to the way Vietnam was broadcasted as a news piece.  This was the first war in which journalist became huge components of the war’s affect on the U.S.  For the first time, American’s got a glimpse into the grotesque, and violence that was Vietnam.  Therefore, because coverage of Vietnam became so essential to the American public, it also greatly affected protestors along with trust in the government.  Now that new media enabled the new “public” to see first hand what the war actually entailed, it trigged mass protests and bandwagon affiliates protesting the government’s organization.

Not only did new media and standardized TV coverage affect Vietnam but it also has played a major role since 9/11 and the war that we are currently still fighting.  As news affiliates captured the twin towers falling to the ground on that fateful morning, Americans all over the nation immediately felt the affects.  Not only has new media affected the TV world and the corporations that broadcast “objective” journalism, but new age technology has allowed for “the public” to receive news, information, videos and more, instantaneously.  Part of the reason why Vietnam paved the way for war coverage, was because visually, the American people were able to actually witness the damage and destruction being done.  Hearing about war is one thing, but seeing actual clips from the frontline, that experience alone can greatly influence and individual. -Megan Psyllos