The Form of News

This book takes a fresh look at the role of the newspaper in United States civic culture. Unlike other histories which focus only on the content of newspapers, this book digs deeper into ways of writing, systems of organizing content, and genres of presentation, including typography and pictures. The authors examine how these elements have combined to give newspapers a distinctive look at every historical moment, from the colonial to the digital eras. They reveal how the changing form of news reflects such major social forces as the rise of mass politics, the industrial revolution, the growth of the market economy, the course of modernism, and the emergence of the Internet. Whether serving as town meeting, court of opinion, marketplace, social map, or catalog of diversions, news forms are also shown to embody cultural authority, allowing readers to see and relate to the world from a particular perspective. Including over 70 illustrations, the book explores such compelling themes as the role of news in a democratic society, the relationship between news and visual culture, and the ways newspapers have shaped the meaning of citizenship.

Winner of the International Communication Association Outstanding Book Award
About the Author: Kevin G. Barnhurst grew up in Salt Lake City and received a PhD (1997) from the University of Amsterdam. Before joining the communication faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago, he was a Fulbright professor in Lima, Peru; completed a research fellowship at Columbia University; and taught journalism and graphic design. His first book, Seeing the Newspaper, was named a Best Book of 1994 by In These Times magazine, and he has written for the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, Commentary, and the American Scholar.

John Nerone was born in Cincinnati and educated at Xavier University and the University of Notre Dame, where he received a PhD (1982). In 1983 he began teaching in the College of Communications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he continues to teach courses in the history of the media and normative press theory. He is the author of three previous books: The Culture of the Press in the Early Republic, Violence against the Press, and Last Rights: Revisiting Four Theories of the Press, which he edited and coauthored with seven of his colleagues in Urbana.