In his highly praised Republic of Mass Culture, James L. Baughman offers a lively analysis of the impact that the advent of television has had on America's media industries. He contends that because television had captured the largest share of the mass audience by the late 1950s, rival media were forced to target smaller, "sub-group" markets with novel content that ranged from rock 'n' roll for teenage radio listeners in the 1950s to the more sexually explicit films that began to appear in the 1960s. For this updated edition, Baughman includes in his discussion the effects of the new competitive realities of the 1990s on journalism, filmmaking, and broadcasting. The dominance of marketplace values, he argues, has further fragmented the mass audience, encouraged record-breaking mergers between media companies, and precipitated a steady and alarming decline in the quality of and public interest in journalism, a trend that may ultimately threaten American democracy.

Product Description: In this concise biography of the twentieth century's most influential magazine publisher, James L. Baughman describes Henry R. Luce's career and assesses his lasting contributions to American journalism. In 1923, Luce founded Time, an innovative magazine that revolutionized the news media...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: The new edition of James L. Baughman's successful book The Republic of Mass Culture examines the advent of television and the impact it had on the established mass media―radio, film, newspapers, and magazines. When television captured the largest share of the mass audience by the late 1950s, rival media were forced to target smaller, subgroup markets with novel content: rock 'n' roll for teenage radio listeners in the 1950s, sexually explicit films that began to appear in the 1960s, and analytical newspaper reporting in the 1970s and 1980s...read more

Product Description: Book by Baughman, James L.