Audience Feedback in the News Media

Bill Reader

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317682660
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

As long as there has been news media, there has been audience feedback. This book provides the first definitive history of the evolution of audience feedback, from the early newsbooks of the 16th century to the rough-and-tumble online forums of the modern age. In addition to tracing the historical development of audience feedback, the book considers how news media has changed its approach to accommodating audience participation, and explores how audience feedback can serve the needs of both individuals and collectives in democratic society. Reader writes from a position of authority, having worked as a "letters to the editor" editor and has written numerous research articles and professional essays on the topic over the past 15 years.

Routledge Research in Journalism

1. Journalists, Sources, and Credibility
   New Perspectives
   Bob Franklin and Matt Carlson
2. Journalism Education, Training and Employment
   Bob Franklin and Donica Mensing
3. Network Journalism
   Journalistic Practice in Interactive Spheres
   Ansgard Heinrich
4. International News in the Digital Age
   East-West Perceptions of a New World Order
   Judith Clarke and Michael Bromley
5. Digital Media and Reporting Conflict
   Blogging and the BBC’s Coverage of War and Terrorism
   Daniel Bennett
6. A Global Standard for Reporting Conflict
   Jake Lynch
7. The Future of Quality News Journalism
   A Cross-Continental Analysis
   Edited by Peter J. Anderson, George Ogola, and Michael Williams
8. Journalism and Eyewitness Images
   Digital Media, Participation, and Conflict
   Mette Mortensen
9. Foreign Correspondents and International Newsgathering
   The Role of Fixers
   Colleen Murrell
10. Social Media at BBC News
    The Re-Making of Crisis Reporting
    Valerie Belair-Gagnon
11. Audience Feedback in the News Media
    Bill Reader

Audience Feedback in the News Media

Bill Reader

First published 2015

by Routledge

605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

and by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2015 Taylor & Francis

The right of Bill Reader to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Reader, Bill, 1970–

Audience feedback in the news media / by Bill Reader.

pages cm

Includes index.

 1. Mass media—Public opinion. 2. Press—Public opinion. 3. Journalism—Public opinion. I. Title.

P96.P83R425 2015

302.23—dc23

2014036835

ISBN: 978-1-138-77533-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-77385-8 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781315773858

Typeset in Sabon

by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Audience Comments, the Spice of History
• 2 “Packets of Letters”: Audience Comments Before Freedom of the Press
• 3 “A Sure Sign of Liberty, and a Cause of It”: Audience Feedback and the Emergence of the Free Press
• 4 Commodification of Comments: Professional Bias and Gatekeeping of Letters to the Editor
• 5 Professional Journalism’s Transformation of “a Quaint Tradition”
• 6 Concerning “Crackpots”: The Media’s Love-Hate Relationship with Feedback
• 7 “In My Opinion …”: Commenting as Individual Agency
• 8 “We, the People …”: Commenting as Collective Action
• 9 Conclusion: Gatekeeping in an Age without Fences
• Index

Acknowledgements

In many parts of this book, I make the (somewhat unpopular) argument in defense of anonymity. But my 15-year journey to write this book has been assisted by many people, and I would be ungrateful to not mention them here by name.

My few years in the newsroom of the Centre Daily Times, especially my two years as opinion page editor, set the stage. I remain deeply grateful to John Winn Miller, then the editor, for hiring me; to Lou Heldman, then the publisher, for promoting me; to Becky Bennett, then the managing editor, for supporting me; and to Kakie Urch, then the assistant editor, for encouraging me.

I graduated from The Pennsylvania State University twice, and both times there were several professors who helped me to first become an award-winning journalist and later to become a relatively successful professor and researcher. Among my mentors from Penn State are Jock Lauterer, currently director of the Carolina Community Media Project at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Steven Knowlton, currently a professor at Dublin City University in Ireland; Shyam Sundar, Mary Beth Oliver, and Ford Risley, all senior faculty members of distinction at Penn State’s College of Communication; and especially Richard Barton, who chaired my thesis committee and, as such, oversaw my first in-depth study of audience feedback in the news media.

My first academic job was at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and from my time there I’d like to thank my former colleague David Allen for his integrity and insights over the years. I am especially grateful to my former UWM colleague Tasha Oren and her husband, Stewart David Ikeda, who have been and remain steadfast friends.

At Ohio University, I have had many excellent colleagues who have since moved on to more success. They include the person who first hired me at Ohio, Michael Bugeja, now director of the Greenlee School of Journalism at Iowa State University; his successor, Jan Slater, who at the time of this writing is dean of the College of Media at the University of Illinois; Diana Knott Martinelli, associate dean of the P.I. Reed School of Media at West Virginia University; Deborah Gump, visiting professor at the University of South Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communications; and Dan Riffe, currently Richard Cole Eminent Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

I still have many excellent colleagues at Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, and I am grateful to my close friends and colleagues Eddith Dashiell, Mary Rogus, Carson Wagner, Aimee Edmondson, Mike Sweeney, and Yusuf Kalyango for their personal as well as professional generosity. Scripps Howard Visiting Professional Andy Alexander, professor Bernhard Debatin, and associate professor Hans Meyer also have been helpful colleagues over the years. I am especially grateful to school director Bob Stewart and to dean of the Scripps College of Communication, Scott Titsworth, for the sabbatical in the spring of 2013 during which the bulk of this project took shape.

At Routledge, I am thankful to Felisa Salvago-Keyes, editor, and Nancy Chen, editorial assistant....

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Frontmatter 1
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Audience Comments, the Spice of History
• 2 “Packets of Letters”: Audience Comments Before Freedom of the Press
• 3 “A Sure Sign of Liberty, and a Cause of It”: Audience Feedback and the Emergence of the Free Press
• 4 Commodification of Comments: Professional Bias and Gatekeeping of Letters to the Editor
• 5 Professional Journalism’s Transformation of “a Quaint Tradition”
• 6 Concerning “Crackpots”: The Media’s Love-Hate Relationship with Feedback
• 7 “In My Opinion …”: Commenting as Individual Agency
• 8 “We, the People …”: Commenting as Collective Action
• 9 Conclusion: Gatekeeping in an Age without Fences
• Index