International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

Media history as a concept in its own right possesses a relatively recent lineage. In the early decades of the twentieth century, when references to “the media” – newspapers, magazines, cinema, radio, and the like – were entering popular parlance, university academics tended to be rather skeptical about whether these institutions were important enough to warrant scholarly attention. Historians, in particular, were inclined to be dismissive. Matters would gradually improve over the course of the century, due to a number of factors (several of which will be identified below). Even today, however, media history continues to occupy a contested terrain between the principal disciplines informing its development, namely media studies (broadly inclusive of communication, cultural, and journalism studies) and history. Pertinent scholarship is more likely to be found in schools of journalism than in history departments. Media history, when defined narrowly within the terms of press history, benefits from the perceived centrality of the news media to the governance of modern societies (→  Journalism, History of ). At the same time, though, much of this research has been criticized for relying upon conceptions of history where the press is regarded as advancing unwaveringly in the cause of freedom over the centuries. In order to overcome the limitations of this “Whig interpretation” of journalism ... log in or subscribe to read full text