1st Edition
Social Justice, Activism and Diversity in U.S. Media History
This book offers a diverse approach to journalism history told from a multimedia perspective, re-examining mainstream stories and highlighting contributions that are often overlooked.
Bringing together a team of prominent journalism historians, the volume centers race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, class, religion, disability, mental health and generations to tell forgotten stories of journalism’s historical influence. The book is designed to appeal to Generation Z college students, offering budding mass communicators a valuable tool that addresses gaps in historical pedagogy and fosters representation in the classroom. Each chapter contains access to video and podcast extras, chapter summaries, guides to further reading and suggested activities to bring these narratives alive and keep readers engaged.
Interactive and accessible, Social Justice, Activism and Diversity in U.S. Media History is an indispensable resource for Generation Z, scholars in mass communication and American history, journalists and general readers.
1. Introduction
Teri Finneman and Erika Pribanic-Smith
Part 1: Generations
2. Life Magazine’s "College Girl" as a Symbol of America in the 1930s
Lindsay Hargrave and Carolyn Kitch
3. The War Against Vietnam Era Underground Newspapers
John McMillian
4. The First U.S. College Newspaper Sex Column, 1996-97
Daniel Reimold
5. Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story Comic as a Civil Rights Narrative
J. Michael Lyons
Part 2: Race/Ethnicity
6. How the Civil Rights Era Brought Diversity to Television News
Kelli S. Boling
7. The Mediated Jorge Washington: Father of Our Countries
Melita M. Garza
8. U.S. Government Suppression of Japanese-Language Press in World War II
Takeya Mizuno
9. Red Power in Print and Action
Melissa Greene-Blye
10. A Groundbreaking Advertising Appeal to Black Americans in the 1950s
Kimberley Mangun and Lisa M. Parcell
Part 3: Gender/Sexuality
11. A Voice for Social Change in the Chicago Defender, 1939-1945
Caryl Cooper
12. Beyond Sex: Independent Women and the Triumph of Cosmopolitan
Paula Hunt
13. PR in the Gay Rights Movement, 1950-1969
Edward Alwood
14. The Press and the 1913 Women’s March on Washington
Teri Finneman
Part 4: Disability/Mental Health
15. "Making War in a Wheelchair": News Coverage of the Disability Rights Movement
Joy Jenkins
16. Seventy Years of Sports Writing on Athletes’ Mental Health
Nicholas Hirshon
Part 5: Religion
17. Writing Religion "Right": A History of Exclusion in the AP Stylebook
Fred Vultee
18. The 19th Century Irish-American Press: Faith, Race, and Revolution
Brian Shott
19. Rosa Sonneschein and The American Jewess
Barbara Straus Reed
Part 6: Class
20. Emma Goldman’s Protest of the World War I Draft
Erika Pribanic-Smith
21. A Newspaper for Workers’ Rights in a Time of Turmoil
Jon Bekken
22. Oral History and the Experiences of Mexican American Grassroots Publishers
Vinicio Sinta
Biography
Teri Finneman is an associate professor of journalism at the University of Kansas. Her research focuses on historical news coverage of U.S. women in politics. She also is an oral historian focusing on local news in Great Plains states. She is the author of Press Portrayals of Women Politicians, 1870s-2000s.
Erika Pribanic-Smith is an associate professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Arlington. Her research focuses on political communication in 19th- and early 20th-century newspapers and magazines. She also researches the dissident press. She is the co-author of Emma Goldman’s No-Conscription League and the First Amendment.
Social Justice, Activism, and Diversity in U.S. Media History will make an important, lively contribution to any course in communications history, social justice, or advocacy, providing new case studies and unique perspectives that will engage readers. The book will appeal to journalists and anyone interested in the relationship between news and social equity.
Janice Hume, University of Georgia, journalism history expert
Social Justice, Activism and Diversity in U.S. Media History provides crucial historical context for communicators writing stories that touch on issues related to today’s cultural chasms. This collection offers an array of resources indispensable for a broader understanding of cultural issue origins and will help journalists communicate more effectively.
María Len-Ríos, University of Minnesota, diversity and media expert
The fact that so much effort, hardship and discrimination in American media history is obscured, repressed, or forgotten is tragic and embarrassing. I’d be surprised if any Gen Z-er who reads this book doesn’t find a new historical figure to respect or identify with. I certainly did.
Sam Kricsfeld, Kansas City Jewish Chronicle editor, Generation Z
