In the past twenty years alone, the world of media has changed drastically. Many of us when we hear the word media think of the Internet, and whether it be Facebook being developed in 2004 or Google+ being shut down just last year in January, there have been many cycles that the Internet alone has gone through. However, media is much more than the Internet. If you were to narrow down media to just a few things, then you might think of books, movies, music, television, phones, magazines, and even video games. Each thing has been through changes of it own, has gone through phases where something or someone was all the rage. No matter where you get your news, they all stemmed from our founding fathers wanting to be able to communicate with the public. They have all changed drastically since the nation’s press was popularized two and half centuries ago. This paper goes through the foundation of a free press, changes media has gone through both technological and societal, and what the state of the media in America is today.
Foundations of a Free Press
There are two main purposes in a democratic society to have a free press according to Moynahan (2018c): to report on what the government and other institutions that affect other people’s daily lives are doing, and to give information to citizens that they need to know to be able to make wise decisions about things such as policy and public issues (i.e. policy passages, laws that will affect their daily lives and the election of leaders). There is one secondary role that Moynahan (2018c) goes over, and that is to give information to citizens that they want to know about things happening in their community and other parts of the world. But what exactly is news? There are two definitions according to Moynahan (2018c), though one is very generic and broad: it’s information about people and events. By that definition, a relative having a baby is news. A loved one passing away is news. What separates those things from the news in the media? The second definition helps to make it easier. It comes from the Hutchins’ Commission and is used to define news in a free society: it is a truthful, intelligent and comprehensive account of the day’s events in a context that gives them meaning. It is news that everyone will benefit from, or that they will want to see.
History of the Free Press
Press freedom is incorporated into the Bill of Rights in the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” (U.S. Const., amend. I). However, not everyone was on board with the different aspects that came with free press, such as licensing. John Milton, a poet in the 1600’s, wrote a prose polemic (an ordinary writing meant to stir controversy) for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing called Areopagitica that opposed censorship and licensing. Milton (1644) said “let truth and falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?” (p.167).
John Locke, an English philosopher and physician, took the question of ‘are human beings free?’ and turned it into ‘are human beings free with respect to their actions and forbearances?’. He was for the free press, but wanted them to respect others instead of throwing accusations around. The author of the Bill of Rights James Madison and the author of the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson both agreed the people should have a say in the world around them. They both wanted the people to have a voice, because in the words of Jefferson in 1787, “the basis of our governments…[is] the opinion of the people” (Jefferson, 1905, “The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Federal Edition,” para. 3). Madison and Jefferson both felt that without the people, there was no government. The more that the people knew, the more wise decisions they could make towards making their daily lives easier.
Those were things said and done back in the 1600’s-1700’s. How did things progress from there? With the purpose of the free press in mind, it began to expand and adapt to different wants and needs of the time periods. How would adapting to these things change the press permanently? How would making mistakes in the beginning help them grow later on? To get a full answer, one would need to look back on the different eras of time and how the news media was impacted by each of them.
Technological and Societal Changes
There are four eras of that are noted when it comes to the free press, according to Moynahan (2018b): the Colonial Period, which is where the Bill of Rights and the free press began, Western Migration and Penny Press, the Industrial Revolution, and the Information Age and Internet. For each era there are people who helped move the press forward, or in some cases made it the way that it is today. As society changed and technology advanced, these eras were made distinct from one another.
Evolution and Influence in the Production
While the Colonial Period didn’t start until the 1770’s, Moynahan (2018a) makes it clear that the press didn’t start there. The first person on the list of key people in the history of the press is Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of the Gutenberg press. The press made movable type possible and made it quicker to quickly copy information, giving rise to mass communication. The second person (and the last one until the 1770’s) is John Milton, who had written Areopagitica. It wasn’t until our founding fathers put the freedom of the press in the Constitution that the press began to pick up.
Western Migration and the Penny Press era spanned from 1830-1900, starting with the country beginning to spread westward. During this time, families that were moving towards the west needed a way to stay connected with their loved ones. So in 1833, Ben Day began the Penny Press, charging only a penny for the New York Sun paper and making it possible for lower-income citizens to get their news. The newspaper helped not only give news to people around the country, but also provided entertainment as people migrated towards the west. It ran ads to pay for its publication and was useful to common people. Fourteen years later, after escaping slavery in Maryland and becoming a national leader in the abolitionist movement, Frederick Douglas became the first African American editor. He founded the North Star paper, whose motto was “right is of no sex, truth is of no color, God is the Father of us all, and we are all brethren”, and also founded the Frederick Douglas Paper. Day helped during the time of the Western Migration to make it easier for people to get their news while Douglas broke societal norms of an African American at the time by becoming a big part of making the press what it is today. In 1865, slavery was abolished and more people than ever needed news and could write news. However the most impact didn’t occur until the next era: the Industrial Revolution.
There are many factors as to what actually led to the Revolution. Whether it be the innovation of entrepreneurs or those made with agriculture, many historians believe that the Revolution started over in Europe. Klassen (2013) says:
“…the United States is often associated with what is termed the ‘second industrial revolution’ that began circa 1870, [and] technical innovations or appropriations in the New England textile industry before 1840 established the groundwork for much of the later growth of the national economy” (para. 1).
Immigrants came to the country during the late 1800’s and provided work for different kinds of industries. Business was booming everywhere.
The Revolution was a huge movement. Since it was such a big thing, the media had to communicate with everyone. As a result of this, there were a lot of technological advances between 1900-1950. The hydraulic and rotary press were invented in this time, making it possible to print multiple editions of newspaper in the same day. Newspapers were now easier to get, and different media formats were used to make gettings news easier, such as film, radio, and TV. Photography also became more popular in newspapers. The number of newspapers sold increased, but not by as much as one would think. However, Nerone (1992) says that “… newspapers were passed from hand to hand, and were read aloud in public places: a newspaper’s total audience was probably twenty times its circulation” (p. 16). These big changes aren’t on the surface for what came around during this time period, however. Nerone (1992) stated:
The Revolution was a key point in the formation of the U.S. media. At first glance, it might seem that relatively little innovation took place. Newspapers remained small― only four pages long― and continued to have limited circulations… but while media didn’t change much in outward form, they changed a great deal in terms of meaning. (p. 16).
So how did the newspapers attract audiences? With more platforms to deliver news, there was some competition, but there are people who wouldn’t let that get to them. Joseph Pulitzer, publisher for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, bought the struggling New York World with the hopes of making it one of the most influential newspapers in the United States. According to Sheposh (2016), “[his] style of journalism was highly sensational, focusing on political corruption, crime stories, and scandal” (para. 1). Pulitzer published what the people wanted to see, often resorting to sensational content: things that were overhyped or made up to attract audiences. In 1893, he started a sports and features section that printed colored comics. Two years later, he began printing a comic called Hogan’s Alley that featured a kid from the slums called the Yellow Kid, named after the color of ink that was used for his clothes. The Yellow Kid became immensely popular and made World even more popular.
With all of this big success came big competition. In 1895, William Randolph Hearst, a media giant on the west coast, bought the rival New York Journal to challenge Pulitzer. “He copied Pulitzer’s sensationalistic methods and tried to hire away the World’s top talent,” says Sheposh (2016, para. 2). “In 1896, Hearst outbid Pulitzer for the services of Hogan’s Alley creator Richard Outcault, and the Yellow Kid moved over to the Journal”. Pulitzer hired another artist for the Yellow Kid comic, and the two went head to head on the front pages of their papers to outdo each other. Many other newspapers tried to copy this style of journalism, the term yellow journalism being coined by a rival editor in the New York Press. Over the years, readers began to grow distrust towards this style of journalism. In the earlier twentieth century, Pulitzer stopped writing this way and went back to the World’s old ways. However as media grew, many platforms resorted to yellow journalism to lure readers. The term has changed over the years, as Sheposh (2016) explains:
“Over time, the term yellow journalism was used more to describe irresponsible or factually incorrect reporting. In the modern era, news that is exaggerated and presented for shock value is sometimes called tabloid journalism, after the smaller-sized papers found in supermarkets” (para. 7).
Hearst continued to build the largest newspaper chain in the United States. In doing so, he started conglomeration, which is when a single company owns numerous other companies that are involved in enterprises in the mass media, such as radio, TV networks, and newspapers. As he gained more platforms, he used them to be able to distribute information. He used different platforms such as print and audio to spread news, which is called convergence. He founded Hearst Communication in March 1887, running a single newspaper to start. Since then, it has grown immensely. “…[Hearst Communication]… owns 46 newspapers, 340 magazines around the globe and valuable stakes in cable TV channels ESPN, Lifetime and A&E” (Dolan, 2016, “Billion-Dollar Clans: America’s 25 Richest Families 2016,” para. 1).
What purpose could these platforms serve to the general public? During the Industrial Revolution, there was a “broadening of watchdog role to include public advocacy and investigative reporting that exposed corruption in politics and business” (Moynahan, 2018b, “Key People and Historical Periods,” para. 5). A lot was going on during this time and people wanted to know all that they could about it. Businesses were booming, and while that was a good thing, it didn’t mean that there weren’t consequences. Journalists that looked into the corruption of businesses and the government were coined “muckraker journalists”, a term Theodore Roosevelt made in 1906 in an article in New York Tribune called “The Man With The Muck-Rake”. Swirski (2013) stated that “it became a phenomenon of the early twentieth century, driving the unheard-of sales of the new magazines” (para. 3). Muckraking journalists attacked social injustice, drew the public’s attention to the complicity of politics, and exposed the abuses of businesses, all with the approval of owners and editors of newspapers and magazines. It’s plain to see that “they were the forerunners of investigative journalists” (Moynahan, 2018a, “Key Terms and Concepts,” para. 3).
In the mid-late 1900’s, civil rights and women’s liberation movements were a hot topic. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka “overturned the doctrine of “separate but equal” in the area of education” (Fayer & Hampton, 2011, p. xxiii-xxiv). With one battle won in the war of African Americans getting equal rights, social change began and changed lives. Between the years 1941-1945, one in sixteen American forces were black, and they would have immense influence when they returned home (Fayer & Hampton). African Americans were not the only ones who were trying to get the same rights as a white man. Betty Friedan (1963) wrote about how women appeared to be happy all the time with no reason to be otherwise:
In 1960, the problem with no name burst like a boil through the image of the happy American housewife. In the television commercials the pretty housewives still beamed over their foaming dishpans… but the actual unhappiness of the American housewife was suddenly being reported… although almost everybody who talked about it found some superficial reason to dismiss it (p. 5).
Newspapers and news stations reported on the unhappy times of the housewife, and with that, the media was a platform to get the word out and support both women and African Americans to get free rights. It kept people updated on the progress of receiving rights and helped people understand what rights they were seeking, as well as why people either opposed it or supported it.
With news easier to get than ever and important information being easily accessible, it’s easy to see why it had such an impact. With sensational content something that is still being printed today and journalists exposing scandals all around the world, knowing where it started from and how it all began is something a lot of present day journalists know. But how many of these trends have crossed over to this day and age? How has the past, especially the Industrial Revolution, carved a path for the future of media?
State of the Media Today
In this current era of advancement in technology and changes in society, ranging from 1950 to present day and known as the “Information Age”, technology plays a huge role. Computers were created along with the Internet, and with that, social media was born. Newspapers were being printed faster than ever before, news could be delivered seconds after it happened. News could be presented on more platforms than ever, making it easier to access for everyone. More companies were made, but big companies bought them and became media conglomerates. Doesn’t this all sound familiar? Technological advances, increase in platforms, the battle for audiences, businesses buying others in order to gain more power? On the outside, things appear to have changed. On the inside, however, is a different story.
The Impact of the Industrial Revolution on the Information Age
A lot of the changes we see today in the media is what also had changed back during the Industrial Revolution. Technological advances made back in the early 1900’s served the same purpose that the ones from 1950 on to do: to make it easier to get news. Back then it had been radio, the hydraulic press and film. Today it’s computers, the Internet and social media. There are more people living in the world now than ever: the United States alone has had over a 200% increase in their population since the 1950’s (United States Census Bureau, 2017, “1950 Fast Facts,” para. 13) and almost seventy years later, there’s so much news to get to so many people. It’s the same situation we faced in the early 1900’s: more immigrants are coming in from all around the world, and it’s important to keep the news circulating.
Media itself changed in similar ways, but the way that we’ve managed it has stayed pretty consistent. Media conglomerates and convergences are bigger than ever as more companies are founded and companies grow larger and larger by buying smaller companies. As mentioned before, Hearst Communications owns a lot of different magazines and newspapers. Today, the company has a 20% sharehold of ESPN, and “some years, it has generated 50% of Hearst’s total profit… now, analysts reckon that… [it] may be worth $13 billion” (Morrison, 2013, “Is the world’s first media group now the best?,” para. 24). The other 80% is owned by Walt Disney Co., who is another huge media conglomerate. In fact, Hearst and Walt Disney have a 50/50 share in A&E, History Channel and Lifetime (Gringer, n.d.). Even with the number of platforms Hearst owns, they’re not one of the top ten media corporations in the world, and Walt Disney Co. is only at number three (“The world’s largest media corporations, 2017,” 2017, para. 3).
So conglomerates and convergences are still a thing. But what about the founder of Hearst Communications’ sensational content battle with Joseph Pulitzer? Did the effect that that back and forth had back in the 1900’s stay with us through the Revolution and into the Information Age? Is sensational content still something we see today? The short answer: yes. The longer answer: the use of sensational content is on a bigger scale than ever. Because the press industry was expanding, sensational content was used to win over audiences. Today, the industry is still expanding and larger than ever. With the internet and the start of social media, it hits closer to home than it was able to before. Facebook has been under fire the past few years for having fake news on its platform, and the fight to keep it off is a bigger struggle than one might expect. Tracey (2018) states:
“… the company told Fox News that it has established partnerships with fact-checkers that can interpret dishonest news stories from your feed. The process, which involves both human reviewers and machine learning technology, is designed to catch any misleading information. Facebook says that the process of actually reviewing the claim is done by humans. If a story is found to have any false information it will be flagged with a blue button and possibly pushed down on a users’ news feed. This false content will be deleted from the platform completely if it violates Facebook’s code of conduct” (para. 6).
Even with this effort, fake news is still getting through. Tracey (2018) says that it will have to be up to the reader to decide if it’s true or not.
Facebook was ranked number nine on the ten largest media corporations in the world of last year, while Alphabet, which is Google’s holding company as of 2015, held number one with a revenue of €82 billion (~$95.7 billion in American currency): over three times what Facebook made last year, according to “The world’s largest media corporations, 2017” (2017). So what can one company do with all of that money? With money comes more power, and with more power comes more influence. These larger companies such as Alphabet and Facebook hold a lot of influence in the media because of their conglomerates, and they can easily get more as their companies grow. There are pluses to this, but there are definitely downsides as well.
With convergences and conglomerates, these bigger companies can buy smaller businesses and turn them into something, such as when Joseph Pulitzer bought the New York World and turned it into a sensational content newspaper. These struggling companies can be turned into a profit. And if a company such as Alphabet has all of these conglomerates under their name, it makes it easier to keep track of who runs what. But with larger companies continuing to expand, it’s harder for smaller companies and even some former larger companies to make it. Take Yahoo! for example. With other search engines and e-mail providers such as Google that have come around in recent years with more features and more modern designs, it didn’t take much for the once huge company to start to fall under. Verizon purchased it for $4.48 billion and plans to merge it with AOL to create Oath, a new subsidiary that will house more than 50 technology and media brands (Varettoni and Campbell, 2017).
How are convergences and conglomerates negative to us, the consumers of media? For media conglomerates, money is the main goal. Because there’s so little competition, what stops larger companies from doing things just for the money? Why serve public interest when they could turn a profit? As mentioned before, advertisements have always been a huge part of the media. There’s nothing stopping bigger companies from focusing solely on advertisers. Media giants also make it hard for others to voice their viewpoints, and that lack of diversity can lead straight to a single company creating a monopoly on the media market. So the news becomes biased and the same thing is repeated over and over again. Because of the one viewpoint that is being shown, minorities and women won’t have much say in the media at all.
Social media and citizen journalism could help in a situation such as that.
2018-9-21-1537537177