JournalismAmericanA Journal of Media History

Fall 2012Volume 29, Number 4

Editor’s Note Kathy Roberts Forde • 5

Bonnie Bressers and Janice Hume • 9

Message Boards, Public Discourse, and Historical Meaning:An Online Community Reacts to September 11

Book Reviews Dolores Flamiano, Editor • 137

“Dear D”: Sophie Treadwell’s 1915 Correspondence from the “Big War Theatre” Jane Marcellus • 68

Not “Merely an Advertisement”: Purity, Trust, and Flour, 1880–1930

Lisa Mullikin Parcell and Margot Opdycke Lamme • 94

The Pill at Fifty: How the New York Times Covered the Birth Control Pill, 1960–2010 Marjorie Kruvand • 34

An Interview with James Startt Reed Smith

AJHA Oral History Project • 129

Digital Media Reviews Pete Smith, Editor • 153

— Spring 2012 • 9

American Journalism, 29:4, 9–33Copyright © 2012, American Journalism Historians Association

Message Boards, Public Discourse, and Historical Meaning:

An Online Community Reacts to September 11

By Bonnie Bressers and Janice Hume

This study examines messages posted to NYTimes.com in the first three days after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It con-tributes to our understanding of the history of interactive mediated communication, especially in a time of crisis, by providing insight into how this online community immediately constructed meaning out of the attacks. Readers used this new technology to engage in geographically and temporally unrestricted public discourse. They exchanged opinions, released emotions, argued, supported, and reacted, with political commentary the most commonly featured discourse. With the eleventh anniversary of the attacks just behind us, the readers’ dialogue offers a glimpse into the mediated public conversation at an important historic moment when people were just beginning to understand the tragedy’s meaning and the pos-sibilities of interactive, digital technologies. Understanding the ele ments of message- board content aids our understanding of how and why readers engage in public digital discourse, a phenomenon then in its infancy but now an important part of me-dia content.

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a defining moment in American history, came at an important time in media his-

tory, a time when the mainstream press and others were just beginning to understand the capabilities of interactive, digital technologies. Media historian Jean Seaton argued that the attacks were a type of world news event that commanded attention every-where, gripped people at work or at home, and cre-

Bonnie Bressers is an associate professor at Kansas State University, A. Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications, 105 Kedzie, Manhattan, KS 66506. (785) 532–3956 bressers@k- state.edu; Janice Hume is a professor at the University of Georgia, Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, 120 Hooper St., Athens, GA 30602. (706) 542–5980 jhume@uga.edu

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American Journalism, 29:4, 34–67Copyright © 2012, American Journalism Historians Association

The Pill at Fifty: How the New York Times Covered the Birth Control Pill, 1960–2010By Marjorie Kruvand

The birth control pill is a scientific innovation turned cultural phenomenon whose use has been entangled with health concerns, ethical choices, religious opposition, and political and legal con-troversies. Although two generations of Americans have learned most of what they know about the pill from the news media, media coverage of the pill has received limited attention. The fiftieth an-niversary of the pill provides a vantage point to examine journalism history, and especially, how news of scientific and medical devel-opments accompanied by challenging issues has been reported. This qualitative and quantitative content analysis of five decades of coverage in the New York Times finds that journalists have been impacted by enduring news values that influenced their choice of sources, their use of frames, and how they constructed their stories. Types and gender of sources and the prevalence and dominance of media frames changed dramatically over a half century, reflecting changes in both journalism and society.

After decades of being demonized, glamorized, hyped, feared, and often misunderstood, the birth control pill marked its fiftieth anniversary in 2010. About 12 mil-

lion American women currently take the pioneering oral contracep-tive and more than 80 percent of all American women use it at some

point in their lives.1 Known simply and ubiqui-tously as “The Pill,” this tiny medication was a scientific innovation that became a cultural phenomenon, its use perpetually entangled with health concerns, ethical choices, religious opposition, and political and legal battles. As

Marjorie Kruvand is an assistant professor at Loyola University Chicago, School of Communication, 820 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611. (312) 915–7729. mkruvand@luc.edu

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American Journalism, 29:4, 68–93Copyright © 2012, American Journalism Historians Association

“Dear D”: Sophie Treadwell’s 1915 Correspondence from the “Big War Theatre”By Jane Marcellus

Although she is best known as the author of the Expressionist drama Machinal, Sophie Treadwell was also a journalist. In 1915, she traveled to France to cover World War I for the San Francisco Bulletin and Harper’s Weekly. This paper examines her published and unpublished war correspondence, consisting of articles for the Bulletin framed as letters to “D,” a hypothetical friend back home in California, and a Harper’s Weekly article emphasizing women’s experience. The paper argues that because Treadwell did not focus on soldiers and fighting, but instead looked at daily life in “the big war theatre,” her work was an effort to develop a female- centered journalistic voice.

In the spring of 1915, when 29- year- old Sophie Treadwell arrived in France to cover World War I for the San Fran-cisco Bulletin and Harper’s Weekly, she received a letter

from Bulletin editor Fremont Older at the American Express office in Paris.

I am very glad that you have gone to the war. I am perfectly certain that you will make a success of your work. I don’t believe that there is an editor in America who would dare turn down anything that you write in France, or any part of the war zone. That is how much confidence I have in you, and I think that is what all the Bulletin people think,

too. Good luck to you, accompanied by the love of all.1

Less than two months later, Older wrote to Treadwell again— this time in a less lauda-tory tone: “Dear Sophie: Your stuff thus far has failed completely. I am sorry to say this so

Jane Marcellus is an associate professor at Middle Tennessee State University, School of Journalism, MTSU Box 64, Murfreesboro, TN 37132. (615) 898–5282 jane.marcellus@mtsu.edu

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American Journalism, 29:4, 94–127Copyright © 2012, American Journalism Historians Association

Not “Merely an Advertisement”: Purity, Trust, and Flour, 1880–1930By Lisa Mullikin Parcell and Margot Opdycke Lamme

This study examines how an integrated program of marketing communication (including advertising and public relations) ad-dressed the purity of patent flour, a consumable attacked by the pure food movement and other health advocates for corrupt and contaminated production processes. Targeted to homemakers and commercial bakers alike, the promotional materials studied here examine the Gold Medal and Pillsbury brands from 1880 to 1930, a period that saw the rise of national brands, the growth of national advertising, the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, and the educational and regulatory efforts of the FDA. It was found that these companies responded to those criticisms and developed a long- term campaign that tapped into contemporary cultural con-cerns not only to sell product but also to educate consumers about purity, health values, and domestic success. In the process, these promotions also sought to build on a bond of trust in the product to trust in the brand and the company itself through traditional ad placements in targeted media and through initiatives that reached into consumers’ homes and kitchens.

Until the early 1900s, putting meat on the table three times a day was a source of American pride. Im-

migrants came to America, often from places where they had little to eat, and eagerly adopted the American standard of a high protein, high fat diet. Those who lived on farms or did other hard manual labor relied on meals that were rich in meat and calories and which varied region-ally. Southerners, for example, ate mostly pork and corn, while Northerners and Midwesterners ate a great deal of beef and potatoes.1 Seasonal

Lisa M. Parcell is an assis-tant professor in the Elliott School of Communication at Wichita State University, 1845 Fairmount, Wichita, KS 67260–0031. (316) 978–6064 lisa.parcell@wichita.edu

Meg Lamme is an associate professor in the Depart-ment of Advertising & Public Relations at the University of Alabama, Box 870172, Tus-caloosa, AL 35487–0172. (205) 348–5628 lamme@apr.ua.edu