The republic of mass culture : journalism, filmmaking, and broadcasting in America since 1941 / James L. Baughman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Baughman, James L., 1952-2016.

Series:

American moment

The American moment

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mass media--United States--History.

Mass media.

United States.

History.

Physical Description:

xvii, 287 pages ; 24 cm.

Edition:

Second edition.

Place of Publication:

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.

Summary:

In 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.

Contents:

1. The Voluntary Propagandists 1

2. Americans and Their Mass Media in 1945 9

3. Test Patterns: Television Comes to America, 1945-1955 30

4. The War for Attention: Responding to Television, 1947-1958 59

5. Evenings of Avoidance: Television in the 1960s 91

6. Competing for the Marginal: Television's Rivals, 1958-1970 117

7. Newtork Television Triumphant, 1970-1981 143

8. The Babel Builders: Television's Rivals, 1970-1990 175

9. The Shrinking Mass: Television and Mass Culture in the 1980s 211

10. No Countervailing Motives, 1991-1996 222.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-274) and index.

ISBN:

0801855209

0801855217

OCLC:

35029553