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The Republic of Mass Culture

Journalism, Filmmaking, and Broadcasting in America since 1941

James L. Baughman

third edition
Publication Date
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The new edition of James L. Baughman's successful book The Republic of Mass Culture examines the advent of television and the impact it had on the established mass media—radio, film, newspapers, and magazines. When television captured the largest share of the mass audience by the late 1950s, rival media were forced to target smaller, subgroup markets with novel content: rock 'n' roll for teenage radio listeners in the 1950s, sexually explicit films that began to appear in the 1960s, and analytical newspaper reporting in the 1970s and 1980s. The growing popularity of cable TV posed new...

The new edition of James L. Baughman's successful book The Republic of Mass Culture examines the advent of television and the impact it had on the established mass media—radio, film, newspapers, and magazines. When television captured the largest share of the mass audience by the late 1950s, rival media were forced to target smaller, subgroup markets with novel content: rock 'n' roll for teenage radio listeners in the 1950s, sexually explicit films that began to appear in the 1960s, and analytical newspaper reporting in the 1970s and 1980s. The growing popularity of cable TV posed new complications, especially for network television. The capacity of individual media industries to adapt not only determined their success or failure but also shaped the content of their products.

Two new chapters examine media entrants like Fox News, technologies such as the Internet, and increasing industry concentration. Baughman discusses significant changes in media economics and audience demand that are having profound effects on radio program formats, television news coverage, and the very existence of newspapers.

Carefully drawing on interdisciplinary communication research, The Republic of Mass Culture presents a lively analysis of the shifting objectives and challenges of the media industries.

Reviews

Reviews

We need books like James L. Baughman's The Republic of Mass Culture.

A useful reference for media scholars at many levels... comprehensive in its coverage, giving especially good coverage to journalistic and other sources often overlooked by academics.

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.

A remarkably complete historical account of the changing nature of the media industries in postwar America.

Factual and anecdotal, Baughman's book will be useful to students and scholars seeking a wide overview of media history since 1941... His work is unusual in its breadth: it covers not only motion pictures and television but also radio, newspaper and periodical publishing, and even to some extent the music industry.

About

Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
320
ISBN
9780801883163
Table of Contents

Series Editor's Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Voluntary Propagandists
2. Americans and Their Mass media in 1945
3. Test Patterns: Television Comes to America, 1945-1955
4. The War for

Series Editor's Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Voluntary Propagandists
2. Americans and Their Mass media in 1945
3. Test Patterns: Television Comes to America, 1945-1955
4. The War for Attention: Responding to Television, 1947-1958
5. Evenings of Avoidance: Television in the 1960s
6. Competing for the Marginal: Television's Rivals, 1958-1970
7. Network Television Triumphant, 1970-1981
8. The Babel Builders: Televison's Rivals, 1970-1990
9. The Shrinking Mass: Television and Mass Culture in the 1980s
10. No Coutervailing Motives, 1991-1996
Bibliographical Essay
Index

Author Bio
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James L. Baughman

James L. Baughman is a professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. His previous books include Henry R. Luce and the Rise of the American News Media and Same Time, Same Station: Creating American Television, 1948–1961.
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