Lecture and seminar schedule: term 2

Week 1

Thursday 13.1.11

Lecture: John Stuart Mill: liberalism and the press (Paul Charman)

No seminar

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Week 2

Thursday 20.1.11

Lecture: From Penny Press to Yellow Journalism in the USA (Greg Neale)

Seminar: J S Mill: liberalism and the press

Seminar/essay question:

With reference to J. S. Mill’s On liberty (1859), the articles provided from The Times of 1852 and relevant histories of the period, summarise what you understand by the term ‘liberal journalism’ and assess its limitations.

KEY TEXTS:

Mill, J. S. On liberty. Especially Chapters 1 and 2. (The 2006 Penguin edition has an authoritative and very useful introduction by Alan Ryan and also includes Mill’s essay on The subjection of women.)

Photocopies provided of Times articles.

Conboy, M. (2004) Journalism: a critical history. Sage. (Chapter 6, ‘The discourse of the 4^th estate’.)

BACKGROUND READING :

Boyce, G., Curran, J. and Wingate, P. (eds) (1978) Newspaper history: from the 17^th century to the present day. Sage/Constable. (Chapter1, ‘The Fourth Estate: the reappraisal of a concept’.)

Curran, James, and Seaton, Jean (2003) Power without responsibility: the press and broadcasting in Britain. 6^th edition. London: Routledge. (esp. Chapter 21, pp 346-8, and Chapter 1).

McQuail, D (2010) McQuail’s mass communication theory. 6^th Edition. Sage. (pp 175-77)

See also the list of general reading and e-journals in Section A of this module handbook

Week 3

Thursday 27.1.11

Lecture: WT Stead and the first ‘New Journalism’ (Paul Charman)

Seminar: The Penny Press to Yellow Journalism in the USA

Seminar/essay question:

‘It is in the American penny press that economics first meets political rhetoric and expresses it in a vernacular form, confirming the accuracy of the comment that ‘The Herald’ was remembered not so much for what it said as for how it said it’ (quoted by Conboy, p.50). With reference to the coverage of the 1836 Robinson-Jewett murder case, assess what was new in content and technique about the Penny Press.

KEY TEXTS

Conboy, Martin. (2002) The press and popular culture. London: Sage. Chapter 3.

Photocopies of ‘New York Herald’ coverage of the Robinson-Jewett murder case.

BACKGROUND READING

Barth, Gunther (1980) City people: the rise of modern city culture in 19th-century America. OUP

Chapman, Jane (2005) Comparative media history. Cambridge: Polity.

Crouthamel,.James L.(1989) Bennett’s New York Herald and the rise of the popular press. Syracuse, N.Y: Syracuse University Press.

Emery,E., Emery, M., & Roberts, N. (2000) The press and America: an interpretive history of the mass media 9^th ed. Allyn & Bacon.

Mott, Frank Luther (2000) American journalism: a history of newspapers in the United States through 250 years, 1690 to 1940. New York: Routledge

O'Brien, F. M. (2006) The story of the Sun, New York, 1833-1928. Univ. of Michigan

Saxton, Alexander (2003) The rise and fall of the White Republic: class politics and mass culture in 19th-century America. Verso.

Schudson, M. (1981) Discovering the news: a social history of American newspapers. Basic Books.

Serrin, Judith and William (eds) (2002) Muckraking! The journalism that changed America. New York: New Press.

Stevens, J.(1991) Sensationalism & the New York press. Columbia Univ. Press .

Tucher, Andie (1994) Froth and scum: truth, beauty, goodness, and the ax murder in America's first mass medium. University of North Carolina Press.

Week 4

Thursday 3.2.11

Lecture: The press barons (Martina McLaughlin)