The Press And The People

The Press and the People is the first full-length study of cheap print in early modern Scotland. It traces the production and distribution of ephemeral publications from the nation's first presses in the early sixteenth century through to the age of Burns in the late eighteenth. It explores the development of the Scottish book trade in general and the production of slight and popular texts in particular. Focusing on the means by which these works reached a wide audience, it illuminates the nature of their circulation in both urban and rural contexts. Specific chapters examine single-sheet imprints such as ballads and gallows speeches, newssheets and advertisements, as well as the little pamphlets that contained almanacs and devotional works, stories and songs. The book demonstrates just how much more of this literature was once printed than now survives and argues that Scotland had a much larger market for such material than has been appreciated. By illustrating the ways in which Scottish printers combined well-known titles from England with a distinctive repertoire of their own, The Press and the People transforms our understanding of popular literature in early modern Scotland and its contribution to British culture more widely.

A landmark narrative history of American media that puts race at the center of the story. Here is a new, sweeping narrative history of American news media that puts race at the center of the story. From the earliest colonial newspapers to the Internet age, America’s racial divisions have played a central role in the creation of the country’s media system, just as the media has contributed to—and every so often, combated—racial oppression. News for All the People reveals how racial segregation distorted the information Americans received from the mainstream media. It unearths numerous examples of how publishers and broadcasters actually fomented racial violence and discrimination through their coverage. And it chronicles the influence federal media policies exerted in such conflicts. It depicts the struggle of Black, Latino, Asian, and Native American journalists who fought to create a vibrant yet little-known alternative, democratic press, and then, beginning in the 1970s, forced open the doors of the major media companies. The writing is fast-paced, story-driven, and replete with memorable portraits of individual journalists and media executives, both famous and obscure, heroes and villains. It weaves back and forth between the corporate and government leaders who built our segregated media system—such as Herbert Hoover, whose Federal Radio Commission eagerly awarded a license to a notorious Ku Klux Klan organization in the nation’s capital—and those who rebelled against that system, like Pittsburgh Courier publisher Robert L. Vann, who led a remarkable national campaign to get the black-face comedy Amos ’n’ Andy off the air. Based on years of original archival research and up-to-the-minute reporting and written by two veteran journalists and leading advocates for a more inclusive and democratic media system, News for All the People should become the standard history of American media.

The inspiring story of political newcomers (sometimes also newcomers to America) who are knocking down built-in barriers to creating better government The system is rigged: America's political leadership remains overwhelmingly white, male, moneyed, and Christian. Even at the local and state levels, elected office is inaccessible to the people it aims to represent. But in People Like Us, political scientist Sayu Bhojwani shares the stories of a diverse and persevering range of local and state politicians from across the country who are challenging the status quo, winning against all odds, and leaving a path for others to follow in their wake. In Anaheim, California, a previously undocumented Mexican American challenges the high-powered interests of the Disney Corporation to win a city council seat. In the Midwest, a thirty-something Muslim Somali American unseats a forty-four-year incumbent in the Minnesota house of representatives. These are some of the foreign-born, lower-income, and of-color Americans who have successfully taken on leadership roles in elected office despite xenophobia, political gatekeeping, and personal financial concerns. In accessible prose, Bhojwani shines a light on the political, systemic, and cultural roadblocks that prevent government from effectively representing a rapidly changing America, and offers forward-thinking solutions on how to get rid of them. People Like Us serves as a road map for the burgeoning democracy that has been a long time in the making: inclusive, multiracial, and unstoppable.

President Donald J. Trump drives liberals and the mainstream press berserk by labeling them the enemy of the American people. While the testy talking heads and petulant penmen in D.C. might disagree, all relevant evidence supports Trump’s claim. Hilariously told, Enemies: The Press vs. The American People is a knee-slapping account of the follies of the corporate press freak show. It highlights the media’s fact-free and for-profit deception of unsuspecting Americans while delivering the press the proverbial beat down it so richly deserves.

Becoming the News studies how ordinary people make sense of their experience as media subjects. Ruth Palmer charts the arc of the experience of "making" the news, from the events that bring an ordinary person to journalists' attention through their interactions with reporters and reactions to the news coverage and its aftermath.

Shortly after assuming office in January 2017, President Donald Trump accused the press of being an “enemy of the American people.” Attacks on the media had been a hallmark of Trump's presidential campaign, but this charge marked a dramatic turning point: language like this ventured into dangerous territory. Twentieth-century dictators—notably, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao—had all denounced their critics, especially the press, as “enemies of the people.” Their goal was to delegitimize the work of the press as “fake news” and create confusion in the public mind about what's real and what isn't; what can be trusted and what can't be. That, it seems, is also Trump's goal. In Enemy of the People, Marvin Kalb, an award-winning American journalist with more than six decades of experience both as a journalist and media observer, writes with passion about why we should fear for the future of American democracy because of the unrelenting attacks by the Trump administration on the press. As his new book shows, the press has been a bulwark in the defense of democracy. Kalb writes about Edward R. Murrow's courageous reporting on Senator Joseph McCarthy's “red scare” theatrics in the early 1950s, which led to McCarthy's demise. He reminds us of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's reporting in the early 1970s that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation. Today, because of revolutionary changes in journalism, no Murrow is ready at the battlements. Journalism has been severely weakened. Yet, without a virile, strong press, democracy is in peril. Kalb's book is a frightening indictment of President Trump's efforts to delegitimize the American press—and put the future of our democracy in question.

"Payepot and His People "was first published serially by "The Western Producer." In 1957 it was published in book form by the Saskatchewan History and Folklore Society. Abel Watetch was a nephew of Chief Payepot and a veteran of World War I. As noted in the introduction to the 1957 edition, Watetch had earlier set down in "fine, clear handwriting" the previously unwritten history of his people, having "assembled many of the recollections of his kin to 'set the record right'," These writings were the basis of the story told here in Payepot and His People, supplemented by further recollections by Watetch and his friend, Chief Sitting Eagle Changing Position (Harry Ball), documented either on tape or through written correspondence.

This book assesses the implications of how children and young people are represented in print media in Northern Ireland – a post-conflict transitioning society. Gordon analyses how children and young people’s perceived involvement in anti-social and criminal behaviour is constructed and amplified in media, as well as in popular and political discourses. Drawing on deviancy amplification, folk devils and moral panics, this original study specifically addresses the labelling perspective and confirms that young people are convenient scapegoats – where their negative reputation diverts attention from the structural and institutional issues that are inevitable in a post-conflict society. Alongside content analysis from six months of print media and a case study on the representation of youth involvement in ‘sectarian’ rioting, this book also analyses interviews with editors, journalists, politicians, policy makers and a spokesperson for the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Noting the importance of prioritising the experiences of children, young people and their advocates, this timely and engaging research will be of specific interest to scholars and students of criminal justice, criminology, socio-legal studies, sociology, social policy, media studies, politics and law, as well as media professionals and policy makers.