Mess to the Press is a narrative of the life of Alexander Murray Palmer Haley (Alex Haley), the author and twenty-year United States Coast Guard veteran who wrote his way into annals of the nation’s literary, journalistic, and military histories. While the Pulitzer Prize-winning Haley is best known for authoring The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) and the genealogical epic Roots (1976), this study archives and considers over two decades of writerly practices that precede publication of these seminal texts. More specifically, the narrative history presented here—charted from a complex network of archival materials and oral histories that span oceans and continents—critically examines Haley’s origins as a master storyteller, a griot of sorts, whose literary and journalistic contributions subverted the forms, functions, and outlets of traditional narrative accounts for his mid-twentieth-century audiences. Drawing on stories told within and across government documents, special collections, oral histories, periodicals, physical artifacts, and retired Coast Guard members’ personal letters and photographs, the researcher employed historiographical methods to examine the following questions: (1) How does Haley become a writer? (2) How does Haley come to recognize, develop, hone, and share his writing as an active duty Coast Guard member (1939-1959) at a time when African American service members endured the realities of a segregated service while fighting for Democracy and Civil Rights on both home and warfronts? and (3) To what extent do literacy practices, skills, and experiences from Haley’s Coast Guard service emerge in his early post-Coast Guard retirement research, writing, and journalism? As this study traces Haley’s journey from scrubbing pots in a shipboard galley to composing galley proofs for some of the country’s best-selling periodicals, the reader is asked to consider how this revisionist account is less of a traditional critical literary biography and more of an autobiographical assemblage. Textual and material analysis of periodicals, special collections holdings, and oral histories navigated by its female, active-duty Coast Guard author works to navigate and expose the roots of Haley’s early writing life and journalistic journey.

Thesis (doctoral)--Université François Rabelais, Tours, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 357-376) and index.

The problem of this research is to discover viewer response to the television series, "Roots," as revealed through newspapers and magazines published from December, 1976, to June 20, 1977. Thirty-seven articles and 134 interviewee responses were analyzed. The responses with the highest frequency of occurrence in the sample provided eight major categories (listed in the order of highest to lowest frequency of response): inaccuracy/oversimplification, increased awareness, future race relations, white guilt, black anger, future prime time television programming, black pride, and sadness. The predominant appeal of "Roots" was to the emotions of the viewers. Despite the criticism of inaccuracy and/or oversimplification, "Roots" was a timely presentation relating to a current social concern with justice and heritage.

James Evetts Haley, a West Texas rancher and historian, balked at the liberalism promoted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. Haley grew concerned about increased federal control over states and believed Roosevelt was leading the country toward bankruptcy. In 1936, Haley, a life-long Democrat, led the Jeffersonian Democrats in Texas, who worked to defeat Roosevelt and supported the Republican candidate, Alf Landon. He continued to lead a small faction of anti-New Deal Texans in various movements through the 1960s. Haley espoused and defended certain conservative principles over the course of his life and the development of these ideas created the philosophical base of the modern Republican Party in Texas.

This Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) examines Nikki Haley's language on gender and reproductive rights. By examining Haley's language through a CDA lens, the thesis illuminates the intersection of gender, power, and ideology in political communication. Utilizing CDA as both a method and theoretical framework, complemented by feminist theory, the thesis analyzes Haley's spoken language to reveal implicit meanings within her communication. The analysis centers on key aspects of her language use, including lexical choices, problematization, argumentation, and intensification, unveiling the underlying narratives and values that shape her stance on gender-related issues. The findings reveal that Haley uses the notion of protecting women and girls to portray abortion and trans rights. She advocates for consensus regarding abortion laws, but as an effort to advance her messaging. Haley views trans rights and gender advocacy as private concerns rather than social issues. By delving into the communicative intent behind Haley's discourse, the thesis contributes to a deeper understanding of political communication by female conservative politicians in the United States. Ultimately, this thesis enhances our comprehension of gender, politics, and power dynamics by revealing how Nikki Haley uses language to advance her political objectives.

This thesis offers an important reconsideration of the place of the Second World War within larger narratives of religious change in the twentieth century. While many scholars have subsumed these crucial war years within accounts of inter-war change, or dismissed them as a period of mellow or austere religion, the Second World War provides a significant opportunity for an analysis of religious change that relies on a confluence of vectors. International geopolitics, political consensus, myths of national cohesion, physical constraints, technological developments and currents in ecclesiastical thought each played a role in shaping the religious culture of wartime, one that the author describes as a “spiritual consensus” that prized unity and commonality over difference. This thesis also opens up an important new front for the history of modern Christianity in Britain. The relationship between mass media, religion and national culture has been under-examined by scholars, as has the particular ways that media shapes mental environments. The relationship between the Churches and the Ministry of Information seems to have sat in a penumbra between disciplines, leaving the rich trove of documents at the National Archives about the activities of the Religions Division of the MOI relatively unexamined. This thesis discusses in detail the global and domestic role afforded to an ecumenical Christianity in MOI propaganda. It also adds to existing scholarship that has emphasised the significant place afforded to Christianity in identity construction during the war, and its importance in the articulation of the narratives through which the urgency and necessity of the conflict was understood. / This is a study of the British Broadcasting Corporation’s religious broadcasting practices during the Second World War and its aftermath. Using documentary sources from the BBC Written Archives Centre and the National Archives, this thesis argues that the wartime context allowed the articulation and development of a particular kind of “BBC Religion,” one that celebrated commonality over difference, emphasized the importance of accessibility, and focused on individual rather than communal worship. BBC Religion was an important site of national propaganda and national identity construction, and was central to the celebration of key civil religious festivals, including the National Days of Prayer. BBC Religion provided listeners with daily prayers, devotionals, talks and entertainments to offer psychological and spiritual support during a time of crisis. Religion can be an effective tool of persuasion, particularly when propaganda builds on pre-­existing beliefs and loyalties. The Ministry of Information and BBC used a generic, practical Christianity as an “ecumenical weapon” to foster unity in Britain and between Allies. This thesis argues that the medium of radio and the technological and physical constraints of war shaped the particular articulation of BBC Religion. While the BBC helped foster a “spiritual consensus” during the war, this consensus quickly degraded in the in the aftermath of the conflict. Instead, the BBC articulated principles of tolerance and liberty in a more straightforward way, celebrating the return of regional and religious diversity in radio programming. In 1948, the BBC broke with its former “ban on controversy” to allow Bertrand Russell to openly question the existence of God on the air for the first time. This study offers a revision to “caesura” and “gradual-­declinist” narratives of religious change by suggesting that religious change in the mid-­twentieth century may be more episodic in nature, and that current historiography would benefit from an approach that considers the formation, development and adaptation of multiple discursive Christianities. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This is a study of the place of religion in British public life during the Second World War. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was tasked with creating popular, upbeat entertainment that could boost the morale of the nation while reminding listeners of the reasons to stay committed to the fight. They created a “BBC Religion” during the war, one that emphasised unity by stressing commonalities between all kinds of Christians, and offered psychological and spiritual comfort to listeners in a time of crisis. The Religious Broadcasting Department created engaging content that prized accessibility and simplicity above all, commissioning beloved programmes, including C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, Dorothy L. Sayers’ The Man Born to be King, and Lift Up Your Hearts, a precursor to Radio 4’s Thought for the Day. When the urgency of the conflict passed and victory became assured, this BBC Religion ceased to serve a propagandistic function. Instead, the post-­war BBC celebrated diversity and respected differences in religious belief and interpretation instead of forcing conformity.