Politics and the American Press: The Rise of Objectivity, 1865-1920

by Richard L. Kaplan

Overview

This study takes a fresh look at the origins of modern journalism's ideals and political practices. The book also provides fresh insights into the economics of journalism and documents the changes in political content of the press by a systematic content analysis of newspaper news and editorials over a span of 55 years. The book concludes by exploring the appropriate political role and professional ethics of journalists in a modern democracy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521621519
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	02/14/2002
Pages:	234
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Richard Kaplan is Lecturer in the Sociology Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His work on media history has received the Catherine Covert Prize for best published article in Mass Communications History (1996). He has published in Journalism History; Media, Culture, and Society; and American Journalism.

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. Partisan news in the early reconstruction era: African-Americans in the vortex of political publicity; 2. Economic engines of partisanship; 3. Rituals of partisanship: American journalism in the gilded age; 4. The two revolutions in urban newspaper economics, 1873 and 1888; 5. 1896 and the political revolution in Detroit journalism; Conclusion; Methodological appendix.

Editorial Reviews

"Politics and the American Press is one of the most thought-provoking works on partisan journalism to appear in recent decades...Kaplan's critique of the press in the 19th and early 20th centuries is impressive and often persuasive because he is so well grounded in the context of the period." - Political Communication, Gerald J. Baldasty Political Communication

"This is the best account of the politics and the economics of the American press in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Kaplan criticizes leading views on the subject (including my own) and surpasses them in a historically well grounded and sociologically insightful analysis." Michael Schudson, Professor of Communication and Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego

"Though the title of this excelent books suggests otherwise, Kaplan offers a case study of Detroit newspapers, 1865-1920... The research is thorough—content analysis of 10,000 news stories over a period of 55 years—and the analyses and writing are sound... Upper-division undergraduates and above." Choice

"Richard L. Kaplan...has made an important contribution to understanding the relationship between American political parties and the press during the crucial decades between the Civil War and World War I...Kaplan's conclusions are compelling...[it] is an important monograph that will have to be considered by anyone interested in the period." History

"[Kaplan] challenged the views of many earlier authors in a very thoughtful and persuasive way." Political Communication

"What begins as a perfectly straightforward, and exceedingly well-done, analysis of the political history of the press and parties in the Gilded and Progressive eras ends as a polemic for public journalism...the early chapters of the book do provide an excellent examination of the partisan press system after the Civil War. Further, this work may have considerable relevance for those of us living in America today." -Debra R. Van Tuyll, Augusta State University, H-NET

From the Publisher