The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of American Communications

by STARR PAUL

• ISBN13: 9780465081936
• ISBN10: 0465081932
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-03-30
• Publisher: Perseus Books Group

Summary

America's leading role in today's information revolution may seem simply to reflect its position as the world's dominant economy and most powerful state. But by the early nineteenth century, when the United States was neither a world power nor a primary center of scientific discovery, it was already a leader in communications-in postal service and newspaper publishing, then in development of the telegraph and telephone networks, later in the whole repertoire of mass communications.In this wide-ranging social history of American media, from the first printing press to the early days of radio, Paul Starr shows that the creation of modern communications was as much the result of political choices as of technological invention. With his original historical analysis, Starr examines how the decisions that led to a state-run post office and private monopolies on the telegraph and telephone systems affected a developing society. He illuminates contemporary controversies over freedom of information by exploring such crucial formative issues as freedom of the press, intellectual property, privacy, public access to information, and the shaping of specific technologies and institutions. America's critical choices in these areas, Starr argues, affect the long-run path of development in a society and have had wide social, economic, and even military ramifications. The Creation of the Media not only tells the history of the media in a new way; it puts America and its global influence into a new perspective.

Author Biography

Paul Starr is Professor of Sociology at Princeton University.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction: The Political Origins of Modern Communications	p. 1
Revolutions as Constitutive Moments	p. 4
Communications and Power	p. 7
The Path of American Development	p. 12
The Opening of the Public Sphere, 1600-1860
Early Modern Origins	p. 23
The Diffusion and Control of Print	p. 25
Networks and News	p. 30
England's Opening	p. 33
France and the Transnational Public	p. 41
The De Facto Public Sphere	p. 45
New Foundations	p. 47
Colonial Legacies	p. 49
The Revolution and the Public Sphere	p. 62
Constitutional Choices	p. 71
Why Rights Mattered	p. 77
America's First Information Revolution	p. 83
The Creation of the News Network	p. 84
Privacy and Public Knowledge	p. 94
The Democratization of Competence	p. 99
An American Revolution in Communications	p. 107
Capitalism and Democracy in Print	p. 113
Publishing and the Limits of Copyright	p. 115
The Revolution of Cheap Print	p. 123
New Publics, New Markets	p. 130
Center and Periphery in Antebellum America	p. 139
The Consequences of Political Choice	p. 146
The Rise of Technological Networks, 1840-1930
The First Wire	p. 153
A Path for the Telegraph	p. 155
Monopoly on the Wires	p. 165
Wiring the News	p. 177
New Connections: Telephone, Cable, and Wireless	p. 191
A Path for the Telephone	p. 192
The Technology of Civil Society	p. 200
Hello, Regulation	p. 205
Wires, Waves, and Lines of Innovation	p. 212
Communications and Strategic Advantage	p. 222
The Making of the Modern Media, 1865-1941
Great Transformations: The Early Mass Media and the Diversity Dynamic	p. 233
The Rise of Moral Censorship	p. 235
Diversity and Daily Journalism	p. 250
Politics, Markets, and Magazines	p. 260
The Local and Oppositional Press	p. 262
The Rediscovery of the First Amendment	p. 267
Free Speech Becomes a Cause	p. 268
War as a Generative Crisis	p. 274
The Liberal Turn of the Twenties	p. 286
The Framing of the Movies	p. 295
The Path to the Nickelodeon	p. 296
Censorship and Diversity on the Screen	p. 305
The Consolidation of Control	p. 315
The Constitution of the Air (1): The Origins of Broadcasting	p. 327
Clashes in the Ether	p. 330
Divergent Paths	p. 339
The Constitution of the Air (2): Creating the New Public Sphere	p. 347
New Networks, New Powers	p. 348
Censorship and Diversity on the Dial	p. 363
Politics and the New Public Sphere	p. 370
Networks and News	p. 376
Coda: The Advent of the Media	p. 385
The Sources of Media Power	p. 388
The Media and Democracy	p. 395
Notes	p. 403
Index	p. 471
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