Exam 1 Flashcards
Media
Plural form of medium; a means of communication.
ex. print, radio, film, social media
History
A narrative that organizes and makes sense of the past.
- changes along with culture
- no historical narrative is comprehensible/complete
- often aspires to objectivity, but seldom achieves it
- written from a particular perspective.
History vs. The past
History is a narrative that make sense of the objects, memories, people, and circumstances that occurred previously.
Past is the objects, memories, people, and circumstances that occurred previously.
Historiography
The practice/craft of writing history.
Presentism
When history is written and judged from the perspective of the moment it was created. It often creates unfair and unreasonable expectations for the past is organizes.
AKA “historians fallacy” / Anachronism
Anachronism
“contrary to time”
- often confuse two or more time periods.
Whig History
An approach to historiography that presents the past as an inevitable progression towards ever greater liberty and enlightenment, culminating in modern forms of liberal democracy and constitutional monarchy.
Culture
The values, beliefs, and practices that mark a particular context.
- these change over time and are specific to particular settings.
- has a significant impact on how history is written.
- human creation
ex. China vs. US; California vs. Iowa; Council Bluffs vs. Iowa City; 20th vs 21st century.
Media Revolutions
Printing
Imaging
Electronic
Digital
Four Stages of Media History
- Authoritarian (censored)
- Parisan (political parties)
- Commercial / Penny Press (often sensationalistic)
- Organized Intelligence (future development)
McLuhan
A media critic who was strongly influenced by Innis and also put communication at the center of history and social life; a deterministic view of technology
McLuhan’s the Medium is the Message
States that the kind of communication - print, imaging, broadcasting, or computing - has a strong influence not only on the message itself, but on the type of thinking and the development of the culture creating the messages.
ex. A literate print culture is different from a visual or radio or tv culture.
Determinism
Determinists see technologies as path-dependent, with inevitable changes and consequently predictable impacts on society.
- Technology shapes society (to a degree)
ex. fiber optic internet
Constructionism
Social constructionists see a stronger influence for economics, politics, and culture that controls technological development.
- society shapes technology (to a degree)
ex. texting
Utopian
When people embrace technology in an extremely optimistic way
Luddites
When people reject technology in an extreme and pessimistic way
Ideology
A set of lenses that creates a way of looking at and interpreting the world and our place in it.
When historians consider how technology is developed there are often 2 basic schools of thought: what are they?
Determinism and constructionism; neither is right or wrong
Sometimes predictions for technological directions that do not occur are called?
Technological Fallacies
A new medium can ….
enhance, obsolesce, retrieve, reverse
Oral culture
Language and storytelling are innate in humans.
Use of media is learned - it does not come to us naturally (hence “learned”)
- Oral culture does not disappear as new media emerge (Radio, FRD’s Fireside Chats, Podcasts)
Written language
Not innate to humans - had to be invented.
Logographic, Syllabary, Alphabetic
Printing’s impact on Reformation
- Print amplified Luther’s dissent
- 95 thesis circulated across Europe in less than 1 month
- Crowds rushed printing houses grabbing pages still wet from the press
- how technology compliments and complicates values, practices, and attitudes
Printing’s impact on Enlightenment
b
Printing’s impact on Political revolutions
It allowed for the spread of new political ideas and fostered forums for debate.
ideas from all over the world came together.
Key figures in print’s development and impact on reformation, Enlightenment, and Politics
…..
Spread of printing
b
Monk power: Production
v
Monk Power: Expense
v
Censorship
Word “censor” comes from ancient Roman office of Censor, which was responsible for public morals and keeping track of the population (hense, census)
Partisan Press
v
Rise of newspapers
Johann Carolus owner of French book printing company
Grew tired of copying business newsletters by hand
First printed newspaper, 1605
Newsletters promote commerce
Steam power and printing
Tens of thousands of newspapers published at a time
Advertisers reach wide audience
Many papers priced as low as a penny
The Penny Press
v
Key figures in the Penny Press
b
Key penny press publications
v
Penny Press: Different Approaches to publishing
v
The Stereotype
Invented in Scotland 1725
Saved typesetting expenses by mid 1800s
Called “cliche” because of Clichy lead works near Paris
The African American Press
- 2700 African American papers published in the 19th and 20th centuries
- Most lasted less than a decade. Not unusual for papers
Pittsburgh Courier (1907-1966) Chicago defender (1905-present) Ebony Magazine (1945-present)
Who were key figures in the African American Press?
Reverend Peter Williams (Freedom Journal) Samuel Cornish (The Rights of All) Frederick Douglass (The North Star)
What is an example of Social Constructionism
Texting / SMS
Text was not designed to be the primary use of phones, but now it is more common than making phone calls. This was not “determined” by the manufacturers - it was socially constructed to be more common than phone calls.
What are characteristics of the people of Oral Culture?
- people think in concrete and practical ways rather than using modern abstract or linear concepts.
- people tend to make decisions by consensus, in groups, rather than within a hierarchy.
- people tend to have polarized world views, oriented toward good and evil
- tend to have a love of epic sagas and poetry
Written language: Logographic
Pictures, Logos, Drawings
Written Language: Syllabary
certain signs for particular syllables
Written Language: Alphabetic
Can be combined and recombined to form words (English)
What is the more efficient mode of written language?
alphabetic systems because there are billions of ideas from only about 2 dozen symbols.
What new language has recently emerged that might be considered a retrieval of the logographic language practices?
emojis
How did printing undermine the church?
It allowed everyone to read and question the Bible.
Figures who used print media for political revolution
Thomas Paine
Camille Desmoulins
Thomas Jefferson
John Peter Zenger
How did printing impact science?
It aided exploration through maps.
Readers would help to improve and amend those maps future editions (just like the info google takes from our phones allows them to improve their product)
New maps were things people would encounter and then map improvements around them (early wikipedia, participatory media)
What were the four basic approaches to censorship?
Licensing of printing companies
Prior restraint approval required before publication
Taxation and stamps on regular publications
Prosecution for sedition (against govt) or libel (individuals)
Press, speech, and democracy: why are democracy and censorship so often at odds?
Freedom of speech and expression often butt heads with censorship
Which of the following was not a prominent publisher in the 19th century in the US?
Benjamin Franklin
Where did the term “muckraker come from”?
President Theodore Roosevelt said the press was like the “man with the muckrake” in the 17th century book Pilgrim’s Progress
Crusading Journalism
v
Yellow Journalism
Named for the yellow ink used to color a comic character called the “Yellow kid” created by Richard F. Outcault.
Usually a humorous take on working-class life, was first printed in the “New York World”
Also printed in Hearst’s journal “Journal American” - was not the only guy doing this but he was known so he was named for a lot of it
Journalism that is based upon sensationalism and crude exaggeration.
Stunt journalism
v
Associated Press
v
WW1 and the press
- The press wore army uniforms
- George Seldes’ interviewed the German General Hindenberg and the interview was censored
- Censorship opened the door for DolchstoBlegende myth that led to the rise is Nazism
Bolo Pasha Affair
WW1 German plot to buy French newspaper using money filtered through US banks
Bolo Pasha bought Le Journal to advocate surrender to the German
Pasha executed for treason on 1917
It was a manipulation of press as warfare tactic
Propaganda
Information, especially when biased and even misleading, designed to promote a particular, and often political, point of view
WW2 and the Press
Reconstruction of press in Germany and Japan after war
Nazism and press
v
WW2 and the Press - key figures
v
Double V campaign
A slogan and drive to promote the fight for democracy abroad and within the United States for African Americans during World War II
Hutchins Commission
v
Civil Rights and the Press
- Press helped bring about this change
- Framed issues as “Civil Rights” not “Race War”
- Important of framing in the press
- Exposed all parts of the country to racial injustice
Civil Rights and the Press - Publications
1827 “Freedom Journal”
1847 - mid 1860 “The North Star” - Frederick Douglas
1905 “Chicago Defender” - Robert A. Abbott
1907 “Pittsburgh Courier” - Robert Lee Vann & Edward Harleston
1945 “Ebony” - John H. Johnson
2006 “The Race Boat” - Gene Patterson and Hank Klibanoff
Watergate
- Burglars hired by White House caught searching Democratic national headquarters
- President Nixon and cabinet charged with money laundering, extortion, fraud, and tampering with election process
Watergate
oKey figures
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein - the reporters of Watergate
End of the Press
- New technology made printing more profitable in the 1970s
- Corporate-driven investment publishing
- Wall Street (share holders) demand more profit
Reaction to digital culture
Media convergence
New media combine with old media to create new and used and meanings
Visual Media
v
Photography and persuasion/evidence
Photography has an “indexical” relationship to the word it represents
Symbolic
Apple: a round fruit, grows on trees, can be red, green, yellow
The term “Apple” is arbitrary. No necessary relationship to the object it describes
Pomme
Manzana
Apfel
Language is symbolic
Iconic
Image that resembles the thing it describes
Painting is (often not always) iconic
indexical
Image that would not exist independent of the object it represents
The indexical image attests to the existence of the object it represents
Fingerprints Tire tracks Photography is (often, not always) index
Emergence of photography
oKey figures, technologies, and events
v
Civil War photography
oKey figures, events, and issues
c
Oscar Wilde Controversy
Photo taken in 1884
The photograph reproduced widely without permission
Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony (1884)
This lawsuit led to copyright protections for photographs in United States
Kodak and vertical integration
Flexible celluloid film Portable Owned by Eastman Kodak Company “Brownie” Vertical integration Kodak owned the cameras, film, development services (all phases of this process)
Pictorialism
oKeyfigures and ideas
Extension of photography into art
Ex. Flatiron Building by Edward Steichen
Photography and Social Reform: Key figures, organizations, and issues
Jacob Riis Lewis Hine Walker Evans Dorothea Lange Gordon Parks
Farm Services Administration
oRelationship to photography and key figures
v
War photography
oKey figures and issues
v
Ethics of photography
v
Censorship and photography
v
Digital photography
Allows for easy manipulation, censorship, and fabrication of photographs
(OJ Simpson)
Which is not one of Walter Lippmann’s four historical stages of the media?
Crusading
Key Civil Rights Events: Brown v. Board of Education:
1954
Supreme Court unanimously decided that racially segregated schools were “inherently unequal”
African American students had been “deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.
Key Civil Rights Events: Murder of Emmett Till
1955
14 year old Chicago resident visiting relatives in Mississippi was murdered and dumped in river in apparent retaliation for supposedly talking in a sassy way to a white woman.
Picture of dead corpse was put on front page of “Ebony”, “Chicago Defender” and “Jet” magazine
Accused white killers were acquitted despite considerable evidence
Till case demonstrated widespread racial injustice in society and the judicial system
Civil Rights Key figures
v
Mediation cannot be divorced from _____.
creation;
Media do not simply convey information, but shape that information (McLuhan helps us with this…)
Media and culture has a _____ relationship.
Symbiotic/interdependent
Media Revolutions: Printing
- Moveable type - 1455
- Religious revolutions 1500-1700s
- Industrial scale printing
- Political revolutions 1700s-now
Media Revolutions: Imaging
Photography, cinema, advertising
Popularization of media
Media Revolutions: Electronic
Radio, tv, satellites
Nationalization of media
Media Revolutions: Digital
Computers, networks
Global culture
commerce is a key driver of…
media change and innovation
English Enlightenment:
John Locke (1632-1704) - he said that humans essentially have a social contract with the government and that tolerance was vital.
Foundation for the Declaration of Independence
His ideas were circulating through print in forms that could be passed around.
French Enlightenment:
Francois Voltaire (1694-1778) - author of Candidate (1759).
It basically said that he my disagree with what you say but he will die defending your right to say it - everyone has a right to their opinion
John Peter Zenger 1697-1746
New york printer who published New York Weekly Journal
Why did John Peter Zenger go to trial?
He accused a colonial governor of electoral manipulation
- Charged with seditious libel, 1735
His defense: he told the truth regardless of how damaging it was
He was acquitted for revealing electoral manipulation
Created principle of truth as defense against libel
Increased press’ civic potential and responsibility
Benjamin Day:
1833
- “New York Sun”
- Tried to focus on controversial and sensational content over “hard” news (politics, science, etc)
- “Penny Trash”
- He saw that people really liked the topics that he was writing about
- He was known for the Moon Hoax - wrote about how people when to the moon and encountered “bat people”, and it was presented as true - aka tabloid journalism
James Gordon Bennet
1835
- “New York Herald”
- Sensationalistic
- Viscous editorial attacks - attacked people and institutions
- Charles Dickens called it a “foul mass of positive obscenity”
Horace Greeley
1841
- “New York Tribune”
- Press has “sacred trust”
- Aided Abraham Lincoln’s Presidential campaign
Henry Raymond
1851
- “New York Times”
- Alternative to Tribune’s moralizing and Herald’s sensationalism - more moderate and allistic, moralizing
- Champaign neutrality and attacked corruption
- Became national paper of record
- “All the news that’s fit to print’” - if its not in the NYT then it doesn’t count - this was a way to build authority
Joseph M. Levy
1855
- “London Daily Telegraph”
- Modeled after New York Herald
- Sensationalistic
- He started doing Stunt Journalism
- Partnership with New York Herald to find Scottish missionary Dr. David Livingstone
“The Rights of All”
1829
Replaced Freedom’s Journal
Run by former Freedom’s Journal editor Samuel Cornish
“The North Star”
1847
Published by Frederick Douglass
Nellie Bly
(1864-1922)
Pulitzers most famous reporter
Went “round the world’ in 72 days
Foundational figure in women’s journalism
Will Irwin
1911
- Colliers Magazine
- Press is “mouthpiece of an older stock” that “lags behind times”
- “Power resides in men of that older generation”
- Placed Blame on AP monopoly
E.W. Scripts
(1854-1926)
- United Press wire service in 1907 to compete with AP
- Established Scripps Oceanographic Service and Science News Service
- “They way to make democracy safe is to make it more scientific”
- He resembles Pulitzer and The Enlightenment thinkers
Ida B. Wells
(1862-1931)
- She was the editor of Free Speech in Memphis
- Investigated 1891 lynching of 3 innocent African Americans by a white mob
- Newspaper stand was burned down be people were afraid of the information she was providing to the public - So she fled New York
- Helped found NAACP
Samuel Hopkins Adams (1871-1958)
1905
- “Colliers”
- He exposed dangerous narcotics and false advertising in medicine advertising
- He created rising calls for a Food and Drug Administration - which regulated the stuff that is on the market
- “The great american fraud” for “colliers”
- Compared “Big Pharma” and today’s opioid epidemic
Lincoln Steffens
1866-1936
- He exposed municipal corruption for “McClure’s” Magazine
- Articles complied in “The shame of the cities”
- Municipal corporation - local gov corruption
Cecil Cherston
- Reporter for London’s “New Witness”
- Exposed stock fraud and insider trading in Marconi wireless stock scandal in 1912
Ida Tarbell
(1857-1944)
- She exposed Standard Oil’s corruption in 1902 “McClure’s” series
- She encouraged antitrust enforcement
- Writer for “McLure’s”
David Graham Phillips (1867-1911)
- 1906, “Treason of the Senate” in cosmopolitan
- He exposed bribery in the US government
- He thought that the pubic had the right to know
Upton Sinclair (1878-1968)
- “The Jungle” (1906): Novel about meat packaging industry in Chicago
- Health and working conditions
- Based on investigations for Appeal to Reason
- Promoted creation of Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Ray Stannard Baker (1870-1946)
“Following the Color Line” (1908) which explored racial inequality and pushed for reform
Supplements
They accompany and highlight certain qualities
Louis Daguerre (1787-1851)
Inventor of daguerreotype process of photography
He did not patent his invention - wanted everyone to
experience this
One of his famous photographs was called Boulevard Du Temple, 1838
Bisson Brothers
1850s
Outdoor / nature photography
Required 25 porters to help cart equipment up Mont Blanc
Roger Fenton
Photographed Crimean War
Worries that Fenton’s photographs of the war were angering British public
He had a mobile studio in ways that the earlier photographs weren’t
Although he was not anywhere near the digital age, there were accusations that he was staging scenarios to make a dramatic photo
Mathew Brady (1822-1896)
First famous American Photographer
Took Civil War photographs
He photographed Abe Lincoln
Helped create an image that would contribute to his election campaign
Important of the image in politics
291 Gallery (New York)
Opened by Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen
Photography would be recognized “as a medium of individual expression
Photography and Social Reform: organizations, and issues
National Child Labor Committee
Farm Services Agency (FSA)
Jacob Riis (1849-1914)
Flash photography
How the Other Half Lives (1890)
He went into very dark places where people lived and used these photographs to show people how these people were living to try and promote social reform
Lewis Hine (1874-1940)
- Social reform
- National Child Labor Committee
- He motivated child labor laws
- Took pictures of the poor conditions that children were working in
Walker Evans (1903-1975)
- Photojournalism
- Farm Services Agency (FSA)
- Rural rehabilitation efforts
- Boost national morale
- Collaborated with James Agee for Fortune
- Led to collaboration on Let us Now Praise Famous Men (1941)
Dorothea Lange (1895-1965)
- Photojournalist
- Farm Services Agency
- Helped get relief for starving families
- She also photographed Japanese Internment camps during WW2 (in link that we read for disc. reading)
Gordon Parks (1912-2006)
Farm services agency
Focused on racial justice
Went on to direct films
