JMS 713: Journalism and Media Historiography (Borchard): Library Guides

  -- Explore the possibilities remaining for historical study.   This book explores the possibilities remaining for historical study in the face of the current trends, including postcolonialism, postmodernism, and deconstruction, among others.   This text is available in a variety of formats - digital and print. Pearson offers its titles on the devices students love through CourseSmart, Amazon, and more.    Learning Goals Upon completing this text, readers will be able to: Understand how to examine trends in history. Understand how historical events influence today's world.  

The traces of the Cold War are still visible in many places all around the world. It is the topic of exhibits and new museums, of memorial days and historic sites, of documentaries and movies, of arts and culture. There are historical and political controversies, both nationally and internationally, about how the history of the Cold War should be told and taught, how it should be represented and remembered.

Images of the assassination of John F. Kennedy are burned deeply into the memories of millions who watched the events of November 1963 unfold live on television. Never before had America seen an event of this magnitude as it happened. But what is it we remember? How did the near chaos of the shooting and its aftermath get transformed into a seamless story of epic proportions? In this book, Barbie Zelizer explores the way we learned about and came to make sense of the killing of the president. Covering the Body (the title refers to the charge given journalists to follow a president) is a powerful reassessment of the media's role in shaping our collective memory of the assassination—at the same time as it used the assassination coverage to legitimize its own role as official interpreter of American reality. Of the more than fifty reporters covering Kennedy in Dallas, no one actually saw the assassination. And faced with a monumentally important story that was continuously breaking, most journalists had no time to verify leads or substantiate reports. Rather, they took discrete moments of their stories and turned them into one coherent narrative, blurring what was and was not "professional" about their coverage. Through incisive analyses of the many accounts and investigations in the years since the shooting, Zelizer reveals how journalists used the assassination not just to relay the news but to address the issues they saw as central to the profession and to promote themselves as cultural authorities. Indeed, argues Zelizer, these motivations are still alive and are at the core of the controversy surrounding Oliver Stone's movie, JFK. At its heart, Covering the Body raises serious questions about the role of the media in defining our reality, and shaping our myths and memories. In tracing how journalists attempted to answer questions that still trouble most Americans, Zelizer offers a fascinating analysis of the role of the media as cultural authorities.

Praise for the first edition: This collection of essays comes mainly from academics but nobody should bridle at theorists lecturing practitioners. They properly challenge the way September 11th was reported - in a way that's both an endorsement of the role of the media and a wake-up call on its failures . . . anyone interested in our trade should read it.'- Roger Mosey, Ariel 'A thoughtful and engaging examination of the effects of 9/11 on the field of journalism. Its unique aim is to discuss the impact of the attack as a personal trauma and its current and future effects on journalism and the reporting of the news. . . highly recommended.'- Library Journal Journalism After September 11examines how the traumatic attacks of that day continue to transform the nature of journalism, particularly in the United States and Britain. Familiar notions of what it means to be a journalist, how best to practice journalism, and what the public can reasonably expect of journalists in the name of democracy, were shaken to their foundations. Ten years on, however, new questions arise regarding the lasting implications of that tragic day and its aftermath. Bringing together an internationally respected collection of scholars and media commentators, Journalism After September 11addresses topics such as: journalism and public life at a time of crisis; broadsheet and tabloid newspaper coverage of the attacks; the role of sources in shaping the news; reporting by global news media such as CNN; Western representations of Islam; current affairs broadcasting; news photography and trauma; the emotional well-being of reporters; online journalism; as well as a host of pertinent issues around news, democracy and citizenship. This second edition includes four new chapters - examining Arabic newspaper reporting of the attacks, the perceptions of television audiences, national magazine coverage of the ensuing crisis, and the media politics of 'othering' - as well as revised chapters from the first edition and an updated Introduction by the co-editors. A foreword is provided by Victor Navasky and an afterword by Phillip Knightley.

A look at what Americans remember (and what they have forgotten) about one of the most traumatic domestic political event in the America's post-war history.