Description
In his highly praised Republic of Mass Culture, James L. Baughman offers a lively analysis of the impact that the advent of television has had on America's media industries. He contends that because television had captured the largest share of the mass audience by the late 1950s, rival media were forced to target smaller, "sub-group" markets with novel content that ranged from rock 'n' roll for teenage radio listeners in the 1950s to the more sexually explicit films that began to appear in the 1960s. For this updated edition, Baughman includes in his discussion the effects of the new competitive realities of the 1990s on journalism, filmmaking, and broadcasting. The dominance of marketplace values, he argues, has further fragmented the mass audience, encouraged record-breaking mergers between media companies, and precipitated a steady and alarming decline in the quality of and public interest in journalism, a trend that may ultimately threaten American democracy.Reviews
"Successfully integrates media content, commerce, technology, and external influences and . . . traces the interconnected web of the established media and the emergent medium of television . . . An important contribution to the history of media industries."—American Historical Review , reviewing a previous edition or volume"An uncommon scholarly achievement."—Milwaukee Journal , reviewing a previous edition or volume "A remarkably complete historical account of the changing nature of the media industries in postwar America."—Virginia Quarterly Review , reviewing a previous edition or volume
Author Information
James L. Baughman is professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the author of Television's Guardians: The Federal Communications Commission and American Television, 1958-1967 and the award-winning Henry R. Luce and the Rise of the American News Media.
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