The Republic of Mass Culture

by Baughman, James L.

• ISBN13: 9780801883163
• ISBN10: 0801883164
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-11-29
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

Summary

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, sub-group 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.

Author Biography

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 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).

Table of Contents

Series Editor's Foreword	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	xiii
The Voluntary Propagandists	1	(8)
Americans and Their Mass Media in 1945	9	(21)
Test Patterns: Television Comes to America, 1945--1955	30	(29)
The War for Attention: Responding to Television, 1947--1958	59	(32)
Evenings of Avoidance: Television in the 1960s	91	(26)
Competing for the Marginal: Television's Rivals, 1958--1970	117	(26)
Network Television Triumphant, 1970--1981	143	(32)
The Babel Builders: Television's Rivals, 1970--1990	175	(36)
The Perils and Possibilities of Cable Television, 1980--1992	211	(15)
Century's End, 1993--2005	226	(31)
Bibliographical Essay	257	(28)
Index	285