For over a century violence in the media has been framed as a “problem” by social commentators. The arrival of a new medium (from the early tabloids to comic books, from cinema to the Internet) has typically been accompanied by a wave of concern about its potential for “exposing” an audience to representations considered undesirable
Sports and the media, from the vantage point of the twenty-first century, are so deeply interconnected as to give the impression of a smooth integration between two powerful socio-cultural institutions. Many – perhaps most – people across the world have a daily encounter with the sports media in some form, including print, electronic, online, and
The term “telegraph” was used from the late eighteenth century to describe line-of-sight distance communication systems, most notably Claude Chappé’s semaphore network. By 1810, this network linked 29 of France’s largest cities to Paris. Experimental telegraphs utilizing electricity passing over wire for signaling purposes were developed in the early 1800s, though it was the inventions
Historians tend to agree that the Acta Diurna in ancient Rome, a daily gazette of official news, was one of the most important precursors of the newspaper as a public disseminator of topical information in the western world. (Newspapers, in their modern sense, would not emerge in countries such as China, Japan, and Korea until
The use of couriers to bear written messages is presumably as old as the art of writing itself. The entrusting of messages to those traveling on other business (trade, pilgrimage, etc.) is attested from ancient times. States in many parts of the world and in many periods have instituted some sort of cadre of official
In the broadest sense, printing is any means by which a pattern, text, or image is impressed on another surface. The creation of an impression in clay or wax with a seal, or in metal with a punch, and the printing of patterns on textiles are all ancient arts that bear some similarity to printing
Public broadcasting is notoriously difficult to define, and yet it has been at the center of debates in media policy for decades in those countries where it exists. Proponents of public broadcasting argue that at its heart is the notion of providing the “best” in programming for all, while detractors would argue that it is
A “magazine” is a type of periodical characterized by entertaining and miscellaneous matter written by more than one author, often with illustrations. It is usually distinguished from a newspaper by containing less news coverage and by a lower frequency (weekly, monthly, or less). In the nineteenth century magazines were distinguished from reviews or quarterlies by
News agencies are among the oldest electronic media, having survived as a genus at least since 1835, the year that the French agency Havas was established. Havas was the first of the world’s agencies to engage in significant international activity. It was followed by Associated Press (AP) in the USA in 1846, Wolff in Germany
The concept of news as a component of a magazine’s editorial content is as old as the medium. The Gentleman’s Magazine is regarded by magazine historian Frank Luther Mott (1938) and others as the first to use the word as part of a periodical’s title; it was begun in 1731 by a London printer, Edward
Digital media, also known as “new media,” comprise content created, disseminated, and/ or stored using digital computers or mobile devices (video games, blogs, etc.), as well as their physical embodiment (DVDs, flash memory sticks, etc.). Digital media are often defined in contrast to “analog media,” new media in contrast to “mass media.” The history of
While scholars of early film have been much preoccupied with the emergence of storytelling and narrative, the dominant mode of early cinema, beginning with the first films of the Lumières in 1895, was the actuality, or what might be called “documentary before documentary”. An instinct for what Siegfried Kracauer (1960) called “the seizure of physical
In mass democracies, where it is impossible for candidates to meet most voters in person, political campaigning has always relied centrally on mass media. Since the beginnings of democracy, vast resources have been committed to campaign communications, motivated by the “widespread belief that media coverage matters to the outcome of elections” (Franklin 2004, 8). Friedenberg
Advertising is a tenacious form. Originating in the commercial impulse to promote sales, versions of what might loosely be termed “advertising” can no doubt be traced to wherever and whenever surplus product has needed to be disposed of. The proverb “good wine needs no bush,” for instance, is at least 2,000 years old. It refers
The English word “censorship” is derived from the root cense from the Latin censure: to estimate, rate, assess, judge. Censor was a title given to two magistrates in ancient Rome who were responsible for administering the census, and supervising public morals. When the Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire, the church assumed primary responsibility
Cinematography is the art of photographing motion pictures. All photographing of motion pictures is, in its broadest sense, cinematography, but it is the special combination of aesthetics and technology that distinguishes the term. It is the art of the cinematographer that makes cinema compelling, the skillful blending of photography, lighting, composition, and the capture of
The history of the term citizen journalism is closely associated with the rise of the Internet as a medium of news and public information. Citizens have certainly participated in news-making from the start of modern news, but journalism’s industrialization in the mid-nineteenth century and later its professionalization marginalized that involvement. It was with the rapid
Career counseling, or vocational guidance as it was originally known, has a long history within the counseling professions. Career counseling was born in the United States in the latter 19th century out of societal upheaval, transition, and change. This new profession was described by historians as a progressive social reform movement aimed at eradicating poverty
The established history of media effects research is characterized by a series of phases marked by fundamental paradigm shifts (see McQuail 1977, 72 –74; 2005, 457– 462; Lowery & DeFleur 1983, 22 –29; Severin & Tankard 2001, 262 –268; Baran & Davis 2006, 8 –17). Each of these phases is associated with particular concepts, researchers
The history of journalism, inclusively defined, encompasses the history of news and news media, including, among other things, the history of print, broadcast, and computer technology; of news work, news routines, and news workers; and of news organizations, including newspapers and other media outlets as well as wire services and feature syndicates. Defined more narrowly
The first phase of a truly global media network ran from the 1860s through the 1920s. Two major interpretations of this era are available. One, long established, emphasizes how aggressive nation-states deployed communication firms to further their own economic and political goals in carving up the planet. Another, more recent, reads the period as one
This article outlines the main schools within the broad area of career theory, which here have been defined as (a) a sociological perspective focusing on the structural influences over one’s working life and the interplay between individuals and institutions, (b) an “individual differences” or vocational perspective concentrating on fitting round pegs into round career holes
In its broadest sense, genetics is the science of biological variation. It focuses on variation that results from inheritance, the process by which characters are passed from parents to their offspring. This often places genetics in contrast to the environment, even though one is not sufficient without the other. For thousands of years, humans have
European societies during the nineteenth century underwent massive changes. The old social order anchored in kinship, the village, the community, religion, and old regimes was attacked and fell to the twin forces of industrialism and revolutionary democracy. The sweeping changes had particular effect on the family. There was a dramatic increase in such conditions as
The conjoining of the terms “rhetoric” and “history” suggests at least three related but distinct areas of study. One, the history of rhetoric, focuses on rhetorical theory and practice during particular periods of time; entries on various aspects of this area abound. Two others are the focus here: rhetorical processes in history and the rhetoric
A primary focus of urban anthropology and the archaeology of complex societies is the history of the concept of a city. Scholars generally cite the first city as emerging in 3500 BC in Mesopotamia. Discussions of the city have emerged in anthropological literature in association with that considered urban, both as process and spatial locus.
The word “communication” is descended from the Latin noun communicatio, which meant a sharing or imparting. From the root communis (common, public), it has no relation to terms such as union or unity, but rather is linked to the Latin munus (duty, gift), and thus has relatives in such terms as common, immune, mad, mean
Introduction Given the central role that health insurance plays in the American healthcare systems, it is remarkable how short a time it has been with us. Many Americans alive today were born before modern health insurance became available in the United States around 1930. Although brief, the history of health insurance in the United States
The field of speech emerged out of changing teaching practices in US higher education in the early twentieth century. Between 1880 and 1920, many of the academic fields in the US formed associations and university departments. University education, with the rise of the research university and the land-grant schools, was becoming accessible to a larger
The international history of communication and media studies has yet to be written. To this point, most histories have been national, with the bulk of attention devoted to North America and western Europe. These emphases are not unwarranted, for the field established itself first on either side of the North Atlantic, was disseminated outward from
Communication and media studies matured into an integrated discipline in the years following 1968. Research and education became centralized in independent schools of communication, while at the same time drawing from related disciplines to improve methodology and explore new paradigms. By the early 1960s, communication studies began to move out of departments of sociology, psychology
Anthropology, the study of humanity seen from the perspective of social and cultural diversity, was established as an academic discipline in the mid-nineteenth century. At the time, broad, evolutionist perspectives were predominant, but would be eclipsed in the early twentieth century by the cultural relativism introduced by Franz Boas and the fieldwork revolution championed by
Media history as a concept in its own right possesses a relatively recent lineage. In the early decades of the twentieth century, when references to “the media” – newspapers, magazines, cinema, radio, and the like – were entering popular parlance, university academics tended to be rather skeptical about whether these institutions were important enough to
Anthropology engages history not as one but instead as many things: (1) sociocultural change or diachrony; (2) a domain of events and objects that make manifest systems of signification, purpose, and value; (3) a domain of variable modalities of the experience and consciousness of being in time; and (4) a domain of practices, methods, and
Those who prefer a narrow definition of forensic psychology do not typically include police psychology in its purview. We have done so because police are sworn to uphold the law and are in many cases the gatekeepers to entry into criminal and juvenile courts, if not civil courts. Thus, psychologists who consult with police in
Lewis Terman (1917) was the first American psychologist to use “mental tests” as screening devices in the selection of law enforcement personnel. On October 31, 1916, at the request of the city manager of San Jose, California, he administered an abbreviated form of the Stanford-Binet to 30 police and fire department applicants. They ranged in
In the years between the two world wars, psychologists gradually became more involved in the screening of law enforcement personnel and began to incorporate personality assessment into that enterprise. Wilmington, Delaware, and Toledo, Ohio, appear to share the distinction of being the first two cities to require ongoing psychological screening for use in police selection
In the early years of the 20th century, psychologists began to offer psychological perspectives on criminal behavior and to speculate about the causes of crime. Like the police psychology discussed earlier, criminal psychology typically is not considered in the narrow definitions of forensic psychology, primarily because it appears more theoretical than clinical in nature. However
Legal psychology refers to psychological theory, research, and practice directly pertinent to the law and legal issues. It focuses on psycholegal research and contacts with judges, lawyers, and other law-related professionals in a wide range of contexts. The origins of legal psychology can be traced to the work of experimental psychologists in Europe in the
Pinpointing the origins of courtroom testimony by psychologists in Europe is not easy. Sources differ, often depending on the nature of the forum (e.g., civil versus criminal court, preliminary hearing versus trial) or its context (informal conversation with a judge versus formal testimony). Hale (1980) suggests that the earliest testimony by a psychologist in a
It is generally believed that American psychologists have served as expert witnesses since the early 1920s (Comment, 1979), but, like their European counterparts, they consulted with lawyers and the courts, perhaps particularly the civil courts, before that time. Included in this latter category are the juvenile courts, which were a hybrid of the civil and
During the years in which Munsterberg was proselytizing about psychology’s usefulness in the courtroom, particularly involving expert testimony, another American psychologist was more quietly making inroads into a different forensic area, one specifically related to juvenile courts. As we noted earlier, consultation with these courts was common, but it was chiefly in the area of
Lindner (1955) pinpointed 1913 as the date when psychological services were first offered in a U.S. correctional facility, specifically a women’s reformatory in the state of New York. Watkins (1992) identified the psychologist as Eleanor Rowland, who was asked to devise a test battery to identify offenders who would benefit from educational programs and be
The history of cross-cultural psychology, broadly defined, started with Herodotus in the fifth century BC. In fact, two excellent histories, Klineberg (1980), and Jahoda and Krewer (1996), note that Herodotus had the insight that all humans are ethnocentric. This is a basic aspect of the human condition, because most humans are limited to knowing only
The history of transpersonal psychology spans several decades, emerging from the confluence of humanistic psychology and spiritual traditions to address transcendent experiences and states of consciousness. This article traces the origins of the field, beginning with its philosophical and psychological precursors, including the influence of Eastern spiritual traditions and early thinkers like William James and
Career counseling, or vocational guidance as it was originally known, has a long history within the counseling professions. Career counseling was born in the United States in the latter 19th century out of societal upheaval, transition, and change. This new profession was described by historians as a progressive social reform movement aimed at eradicating poverty
The history of transpersonal psychology spans several decades, emerging from the confluence of humanistic psychology and spiritual traditions to address transcendent experiences and states of consciousness. This article traces the origins of the field, beginning with its philosophical and psychological precursors, including the influence of Eastern spiritual traditions and early thinkers like William James and