The rise of the American penny press in the 1830s is thought of as a crucial moment in journalism history that precipitated changes in newspapers that are still evident today. Yet, many specific characteristics of the transition from a predominantly elite mercantile and partisan press to the popular penny press remain unknown, including the changes that occurred in foreign news coverage. This study will examine four newspapers, two mercantile and two penny, printed in New York City from 1830 to 1842. It will use quantitative content analysis of five variables frequency, length, prominence, content, and presentation style to compare foreign news coverage between the different newspapers and over time. Contrary to expectations, the newspapers exhibited only small differences in foreign news, indicating the limitation of the dichotomous distinction between the mercantile and penny press. Rather, the newspapers showed characteristics of more nuanced market segmentation, with each newspaper fitting a particular niche of news coverage. Most importantly, this study will attempt to establish a baseline for researching the historical nature of foreign news coverage.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-06092009-111918 |
| Date | 09 June 2009 |
| Creators | Stanford, Virgil Ian |
| Contributors | Hamilton, John M., Lawrence, Regina, Popp, Richard |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-06092009-111918/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
Page generated in 0.0018 seconds