Pub Date : 2022-05-21DOI: 10.1080/13688804.2022.2079483
E. Stjernholm
In 1969, a government report concluded that there was a need for closer contact between the citizens and Swedish government agencies. Television, at this time still considered a new medium, was highlighted in the report as a valuable form of mass communication with great yet unfulfilled promise as a disseminator of government information. A heated debate about the role and function of government information ensued, not least within the public service broadcaster Sveriges Radio. While much research has been devoted to the Swedish public service model, little is known about Swedish television’s function as a communication tool for government authorities. The article shows that the discursive struggles surrounding Swedish government agencies’ use of television centered on three main issues: public service broadcasting’s independence, the dangers related to one-way mass communication, and the shape and aesthetics of government information. By shedding light on the introduction of the program Anslagstavlan, this article contributes to a previously forsaken media history of televised information.
{"title":"A Clash of Ideals","authors":"E. Stjernholm","doi":"10.1080/13688804.2022.2079483","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13688804.2022.2079483","url":null,"abstract":"In 1969, a government report concluded that there was a need for closer contact between the citizens and Swedish government agencies. Television, at this time still considered a new medium, was highlighted in the report as a valuable form of mass communication with great yet unfulfilled promise as a disseminator of government information. A heated debate about the role and function of government information ensued, not least within the public service broadcaster Sveriges Radio. While much research has been devoted to the Swedish public service model, little is known about Swedish television’s function as a communication tool for government authorities. The article shows that the discursive struggles surrounding Swedish government agencies’ use of television centered on three main issues: public service broadcasting’s independence, the dangers related to one-way mass communication, and the shape and aesthetics of government information. By shedding light on the introduction of the program Anslagstavlan, this article contributes to a previously forsaken media history of televised information.","PeriodicalId":44733,"journal":{"name":"Media History","volume":"28 1","pages":"425 - 441"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47751493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-20DOI: 10.1080/13688804.2022.2079479
A. Majumdar
Historians of Partition have focused upon the bitterly polarized yet vibrant public sphere of the last days of the British Raj, wherein newspapers representing Congress, Muslim League and Akali opinion vied for influence through increasingly hostile propaganda targeted at the ‘other/s’. Such studies’ focus on ideological battles and propaganda results in relatively less attention being given to what became of these papers once the British departed and the parties these papers espoused or opposed captured power. This paper will seek to revisit such assumptions by analyzing the trials and tribulations of the significant newspaper houses unfortunate enough to be located on the geographical frontlines of Partition and in major centres of communal conflagration. Through such analyses, I will seek to show that it was a combination of initial mob action, reinforced often by state repression and even popular reproach, that forced newspapers viewed as belonging to the ‘other’ party to move to safer (and greener) pastures. In the process, late-colonial India’s once pluralist public sphere came to be partitioned into sections that broadly conformed to the ideologies that the respective Dominions’ new rulers espoused. While aligning newspapers with the majoritarian public opinion, this Partition occasioned shifts of personnel and presses that would fundamentally alter the postcolonial press industry in West and East Pakistan, and to a lesser extent, in India.
{"title":"A Partition of The Public Sphere","authors":"A. Majumdar","doi":"10.1080/13688804.2022.2079479","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13688804.2022.2079479","url":null,"abstract":"Historians of Partition have focused upon the bitterly polarized yet vibrant public sphere of the last days of the British Raj, wherein newspapers representing Congress, Muslim League and Akali opinion vied for influence through increasingly hostile propaganda targeted at the ‘other/s’. Such studies’ focus on ideological battles and propaganda results in relatively less attention being given to what became of these papers once the British departed and the parties these papers espoused or opposed captured power. This paper will seek to revisit such assumptions by analyzing the trials and tribulations of the significant newspaper houses unfortunate enough to be located on the geographical frontlines of Partition and in major centres of communal conflagration. Through such analyses, I will seek to show that it was a combination of initial mob action, reinforced often by state repression and even popular reproach, that forced newspapers viewed as belonging to the ‘other’ party to move to safer (and greener) pastures. In the process, late-colonial India’s once pluralist public sphere came to be partitioned into sections that broadly conformed to the ideologies that the respective Dominions’ new rulers espoused. While aligning newspapers with the majoritarian public opinion, this Partition occasioned shifts of personnel and presses that would fundamentally alter the postcolonial press industry in West and East Pakistan, and to a lesser extent, in India.","PeriodicalId":44733,"journal":{"name":"Media History","volume":"29 1","pages":"368 - 383"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48443572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-19DOI: 10.1080/13688804.2022.2076662
C. Tulloch
The role of the international press as an external contributing agent to the consolidation of democratic regime change within emerging democracies is a growing research area within the field of media history and political communication. Within the context of these press/power dynamics, this article analyses the intense coverage made by the influential transatlantic weekly magazines, Time, Newsweek and The Economist of the attempted military coup in Spain in February 1981. It argues that all three publications made editorial decisions and employed narrative strategies –based on contempt for the foiled military uprising, acritical elevation of the young King and the consensual projection of democratic consolidation in the country- in an indirect but strategic contribution to the defence of the institutional stability of a country emerging from 40 years of dictatorship and whose destiny was crucial to wider Cold War geopolitical considerations in the southern Mediterranean at the time.
{"title":"Shielding Democracy","authors":"C. Tulloch","doi":"10.1080/13688804.2022.2076662","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13688804.2022.2076662","url":null,"abstract":"The role of the international press as an external contributing agent to the consolidation of democratic regime change within emerging democracies is a growing research area within the field of media history and political communication. Within the context of these press/power dynamics, this article analyses the intense coverage made by the influential transatlantic weekly magazines, Time, Newsweek and The Economist of the attempted military coup in Spain in February 1981. It argues that all three publications made editorial decisions and employed narrative strategies –based on contempt for the foiled military uprising, acritical elevation of the young King and the consensual projection of democratic consolidation in the country- in an indirect but strategic contribution to the defence of the institutional stability of a country emerging from 40 years of dictatorship and whose destiny was crucial to wider Cold War geopolitical considerations in the southern Mediterranean at the time.","PeriodicalId":44733,"journal":{"name":"Media History","volume":"29 1","pages":"255 - 268"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48329351","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-20DOI: 10.1080/13688804.2022.2065973
Colette Colligan
{"title":"The Making of a Media Category","authors":"Colette Colligan","doi":"10.1080/13688804.2022.2065973","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13688804.2022.2065973","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44733,"journal":{"name":"Media History","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41508097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-10DOI: 10.1080/13688804.2022.2057284
Serhiy Blavatskyy
The paper seeks to develop new avenues for a study of the Ukrainian press in the West European languages in Europe during the first quarter of the twentieth century. For the first time ever, we employ here the framing perspective for the study of the victimization grand-narrative of Ukrainians in their foreign-language print media in Europe. We examine the victimization of the Ukrainian people in terms of ‘human interest’, ‘conflict’ and ‘morality’ frames in the press discourse of the respective historical periods: colonial (1901–1918), postcolonial (1919–1921), and neo-colonial (1921/1922–1926). We argue that victimization grand-narrative in the press was used purposefully to evoke compassion and empathy from the West European public opinion for the Ukrainian nation as ‘collective’ victim (‘oppressed nation’). Additionally, this research proves that victimization of Ukrainians geared at securing support and solidarity for their nation-state aspirations from the European opinion leaders.
{"title":"Constructing Victimization","authors":"Serhiy Blavatskyy","doi":"10.1080/13688804.2022.2057284","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13688804.2022.2057284","url":null,"abstract":"The paper seeks to develop new avenues for a study of the Ukrainian press in the West European languages in Europe during the first quarter of the twentieth century. For the first time ever, we employ here the framing perspective for the study of the victimization grand-narrative of Ukrainians in their foreign-language print media in Europe. We examine the victimization of the Ukrainian people in terms of ‘human interest’, ‘conflict’ and ‘morality’ frames in the press discourse of the respective historical periods: colonial (1901–1918), postcolonial (1919–1921), and neo-colonial (1921/1922–1926). We argue that victimization grand-narrative in the press was used purposefully to evoke compassion and empathy from the West European public opinion for the Ukrainian nation as ‘collective’ victim (‘oppressed nation’). Additionally, this research proves that victimization of Ukrainians geared at securing support and solidarity for their nation-state aspirations from the European opinion leaders.","PeriodicalId":44733,"journal":{"name":"Media History","volume":"29 1","pages":"193 - 210"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44054558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-26DOI: 10.1080/13688804.2022.2054411
Gawie Botma
Although many scholars identify the first newspaper in South Africa as The Cape Town Gazette and African Advertiser / Kaapsche Stads Courant en Afrikaansche Berighter (1800), it often does not receive in-depth or prolonged attention. In this article various reasons are suggested as part of a critical review of the historiography of the first newspaper, from (contemporary) critics of the early nineteenth century to latter-day seminal historians. The selected contributions are discussed as a first step to revisit the role and legacy of the newspaper. In the process the article identifies gaps in the field of research and suggests avenues and approaches for further research.
{"title":"Contemporary Critics and Seminal Sources","authors":"Gawie Botma","doi":"10.1080/13688804.2022.2054411","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13688804.2022.2054411","url":null,"abstract":"Although many scholars identify the first newspaper in South Africa as The Cape Town Gazette and African Advertiser / Kaapsche Stads Courant en Afrikaansche Berighter (1800), it often does not receive in-depth or prolonged attention. In this article various reasons are suggested as part of a critical review of the historiography of the first newspaper, from (contemporary) critics of the early nineteenth century to latter-day seminal historians. The selected contributions are discussed as a first step to revisit the role and legacy of the newspaper. In the process the article identifies gaps in the field of research and suggests avenues and approaches for further research.","PeriodicalId":44733,"journal":{"name":"Media History","volume":"29 1","pages":"163 - 176"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45456038","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-26DOI: 10.1080/13688804.2022.2054412
Ulrik Langen
Immediately following the dramatic coup against J. F. Struensee in 1772, information on the events at court was in high demand. Amid this political upheaval an enterprising publicist in Copenhagen launched a new magazine with the explicit ambition of reporting whatever information could by picked up about the coup. In order not to be on a collision course with the new regime the magazine invented a new way of curating different types of intelligence by segregating news, rumours, and commentary in recurrent columns. This adaptable news coverage evaded controversy by reflexive intertwinement of the contents of the columns, while at the same time giving readers the opportunity to make their own value attribution of the information presented.
{"title":"Reportage, Rumours, and Conversation","authors":"Ulrik Langen","doi":"10.1080/13688804.2022.2054412","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13688804.2022.2054412","url":null,"abstract":"Immediately following the dramatic coup against J. F. Struensee in 1772, information on the events at court was in high demand. Amid this political upheaval an enterprising publicist in Copenhagen launched a new magazine with the explicit ambition of reporting whatever information could by picked up about the coup. In order not to be on a collision course with the new regime the magazine invented a new way of curating different types of intelligence by segregating news, rumours, and commentary in recurrent columns. This adaptable news coverage evaded controversy by reflexive intertwinement of the contents of the columns, while at the same time giving readers the opportunity to make their own value attribution of the information presented.","PeriodicalId":44733,"journal":{"name":"Media History","volume":"29 1","pages":"149 - 162"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48187607","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-25DOI: 10.1080/13688804.2022.2054410
Susanna Paasonen, Laura Saarenmaa
Media history is still written largely from national perspectives so that the role of import and export, translations and franchises is seldom foregrounded. On geographically and linguistically limited markets, imported materials have nevertheless been crucial parts of popular print culture. This paper explores the market of ‘sex edutainment’ magazines in 1970s Finland, zooming specifically in on Leikki (‘Play’, 1976), a sex magazine for women translated from the Norwegian Lek (first launched in 1971) that provided knowledge on topics ranging from marriage to masturbation and lesbian desire. Through contextual analysis of Leikki, a marginal publication that has basically faded from popular memory, this article attends to ephemeral and even failed print media in order to account for the heterogeneity of the 1970s sex press market as it intermeshed with sex advice and education. In so doing, it adds new perspectives to a field largely focused on successful periodicals and addresses knowledge gaps resulting from the exclusion of the sex press from mainstream media historiography.
{"title":"Short-Lived Play","authors":"Susanna Paasonen, Laura Saarenmaa","doi":"10.1080/13688804.2022.2054410","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13688804.2022.2054410","url":null,"abstract":"Media history is still written largely from national perspectives so that the role of import and export, translations and franchises is seldom foregrounded. On geographically and linguistically limited markets, imported materials have nevertheless been crucial parts of popular print culture. This paper explores the market of ‘sex edutainment’ magazines in 1970s Finland, zooming specifically in on Leikki (‘Play’, 1976), a sex magazine for women translated from the Norwegian Lek (first launched in 1971) that provided knowledge on topics ranging from marriage to masturbation and lesbian desire. Through contextual analysis of Leikki, a marginal publication that has basically faded from popular memory, this article attends to ephemeral and even failed print media in order to account for the heterogeneity of the 1970s sex press market as it intermeshed with sex advice and education. In so doing, it adds new perspectives to a field largely focused on successful periodicals and addresses knowledge gaps resulting from the exclusion of the sex press from mainstream media historiography.","PeriodicalId":44733,"journal":{"name":"Media History","volume":"29 1","pages":"240 - 254"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42200474","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-24DOI: 10.1080/13688804.2022.2054408
Sofia Paasikivi, Hannu Salmi, Aleksi Vesanto, Filip Ginter
Cholera was the emblematic disease of the nineteenth-century Europe. This article explores the cultural ramifications of cholera by concentrating on the ways in which public discourse participated in circulating information on the disease. It focuses on the reuse of texts about cholera in the Finnish press from 1860 to 1920. The most difficult cholera epidemics in Finland were the first ones in the 1830s and 1850s, and the number of casualties dropped significantly towards the end of the century. At the same time, however, cholera was discussed more than ever, and there was the rising curve of the references to cholera from the 1860s onwards. In Finland, the public discourse on cholera was also entangled with the rising nationalism towards the end of the nineteenth century.
{"title":"Infectious Media: Cholera and the Circulation of Texts in the Finnish Press, 1860–1920","authors":"Sofia Paasikivi, Hannu Salmi, Aleksi Vesanto, Filip Ginter","doi":"10.1080/13688804.2022.2054408","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13688804.2022.2054408","url":null,"abstract":"Cholera was the emblematic disease of the nineteenth-century Europe. This article explores the cultural ramifications of cholera by concentrating on the ways in which public discourse participated in circulating information on the disease. It focuses on the reuse of texts about cholera in the Finnish press from 1860 to 1920. The most difficult cholera epidemics in Finland were the first ones in the 1830s and 1850s, and the number of casualties dropped significantly towards the end of the century. At the same time, however, cholera was discussed more than ever, and there was the rising curve of the references to cholera from the 1860s onwards. In Finland, the public discourse on cholera was also entangled with the rising nationalism towards the end of the nineteenth century.","PeriodicalId":44733,"journal":{"name":"Media History","volume":"29 1","pages":"17 - 38"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49255708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-22DOI: 10.1080/13688804.2022.2054407
J. Hamilton
This article investigates the reproduction of the foundational terrain of media work as composed of amateur and professional realms through the youth movement of amateur journalism in the late 19th-Century United States. Amateur journalists wrote, typeset and printed journals of essays, commentary, word puzzles and stories, which were circulated primarily among themselves in subcultural networks of reciprocity. A broad cultural analysis characterizes how debates about social change due to industrialization shaped definitions and valuations of amateurism and professionalism. A critical political-economic analysis examines how these changes and debates as refracted and reproduced through the commercialization of literary industries and printing technologies spawned amateur journalism. A critical analysis of surviving autobiographical works by amateur journalists of the day explores the on-the-ground cultural production of amateurism and professionalism through amateur journalism’s ascendance, peak and decline. The article concludes by reflecting on the value of these findings for understanding today’s media terrain.
{"title":"Terrains of Media Work; Producing Amateurs and Professionals in the 19th-Century United States","authors":"J. Hamilton","doi":"10.1080/13688804.2022.2054407","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13688804.2022.2054407","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates the reproduction of the foundational terrain of media work as composed of amateur and professional realms through the youth movement of amateur journalism in the late 19th-Century United States. Amateur journalists wrote, typeset and printed journals of essays, commentary, word puzzles and stories, which were circulated primarily among themselves in subcultural networks of reciprocity. A broad cultural analysis characterizes how debates about social change due to industrialization shaped definitions and valuations of amateurism and professionalism. A critical political-economic analysis examines how these changes and debates as refracted and reproduced through the commercialization of literary industries and printing technologies spawned amateur journalism. A critical analysis of surviving autobiographical works by amateur journalists of the day explores the on-the-ground cultural production of amateurism and professionalism through amateur journalism’s ascendance, peak and decline. The article concludes by reflecting on the value of these findings for understanding today’s media terrain.","PeriodicalId":44733,"journal":{"name":"Media History","volume":"29 1","pages":"1 - 16"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48423956","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}