Williamson, Milly. 2012. When 'Popular' was 'Radical': The mass circulation US press in the 1890s, emerging celebrity journalism, and popular taste. Media History, 18(2), pp. 115-127. ISSN 1368-8804 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

The late nineteenth century American mass circulation press developed a style of ‘new journalism’ that gave rise to celebrity journalism. It is widely accepted that this new approach to reporting replaced news values with entertainment as a consequence of the need to cater to the tastes of a mass readership and this is seen to explain the incredible innovations that occurred in the press in the US at the time (Ponce de Leon; Roggenkamp; Tebbel; Turner; Schudson Discovering the News). This article questions this version of American press history by arguing that those papers also had to appeal to the politics of poor immigrants and the working class and that the conventions associated with celebrity overlapped and often coincided with a ‘radical’ populist campaigning style of reporting that was as important (and at times, more important) to building and sustaining mass readerships.

Item Type:	Article
Identification Number (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1080/13688804.2012.663860
Keywords:	American mass circulation press, ‘new journalism’, celebrity journalism, mass readership, radical politics, popular taste
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Media, Communications and Cultural Studies
Dates:	Date Event 27 February 2012 Published Online
Item ID:	24707
Date Deposited:	30 Oct 2018 14:37
Last Modified:	30 Oct 2018 14:37
Peer Reviewed:	Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/24707

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