Summer 2023

Volume 49, No. 2, Summer 2023

The Summer issue contains articles by Gregory Perrault, Leonardo Caberlon, & Cameron Stuart; Kerith M. Woodyard; Lindsay M. McCluskey, John Maxwell Hamilton, & Amy Reynolds; and Elizabeth Atwood. Interested in reading these articles? Get information on subscribing here.

Article Abstracts

“Audience Repair as Paradigm Repair: Fixing the ‘Gamer’ in Games Journalism,” Gregory Perrault, Leonardo Caberlon, & Cameron Stuart
Gaming journalism began its existence under attack from the rest of the journalistic field and from US culture as a result of its audience: young, diverse, and progressive. This study argues that early gaming magazines (n = 150) repaired the gaming paradigm during the development of gaming’s mainstream acceptance from 1991–1995 by challenging stereotypes of gamers: imagining gamers as diverse, social, and mature.

“’Letters from Honest People’ and ‘Letters from Hell’: Emergent Visceral Publics in Carrie Nation’s Smasher’s Mail,” Kerith M. Woodyard
Grounded in Jenell Johnson’s theory of visceral publics, this study examines 229 letters published in the Smasher’s Mail, an American temperance newspaper edited by Progressive-era reformer Carrie (or Carry) Nation at the height of her 1901 saloon-smashing crusade to enforce Kansas prohibition. Because the newspaper printed letters from citizens who energetically endorsed saloon-smashing as a tactic of pro-temperance agitation and from those who vociferously opposed it, this analysis illuminates how Nation’s paper functioned as an important platform for fervid public deliberation over the perceived necessity of temperance reform and the best means of achieving it. Exploring what the smashing controversy meant to real people and the powerful feelings it elicited on both sides of the debate, this study demonstrates the emergence of two oppositional visceral publics bound by shared intense feelings over perceived boundary violations involving the borders of the human body, the home, private enterprise, law and order, and the “woman’s sphere.” Pro-smashing writers, who elevated their alcohol-free vision of the common good over the individual rights of saloonkeepers and their patrons, saw saloon-smashing as justified, even necessary, to protect society from the consequences of intemperance. In contrast, smashing opponents, rejecting prohibitionist calls to regulate private behavior for the common good, prioritized saloonkeepers’ and patrons’ individual rights of life, liberty, and property.

“When Propaganda Became a Dirty Word,” Lindsay M. McCluskey, John Maxwell Hamilton, & Amy Reynolds
With the emergence of systematic, pervasive government information programs and the rise of persuasion as a new profession, the words propaganda and publicity became definitional in the twentieth century. This historical qualitative and quantitative content analysis of the New York Times provides a basis for understanding the usage of propaganda and publicity during the years leading up to, during, and after World War I. At the turn of the nineteenth century, propaganda had a benign, narrow meaning. Propaganda became a negative word during World War I. Publicity also did not come out of the war unscathed. This research provides a more granular understanding of the emergence of persuasion as a profession and helps the readers understand the forces behind the emergence of mass communication as a field of study.

“Deadline: A History of Journalists Murdered in the United States,” Elizabeth Atwood
Despite the press freedom enshrined in the First Amendment, at least sixty-four journalists were intentionally killed in the United States between 1829 and 2023 because of their work. The victims included veteran and novice reporters who worked at news outlets in big cities and small towns throughout the country. This study aims to provide an account of those attacks in order to develop a typology to explain the violence against American journalists. The insights give clues for how the risk of violence might be mitigated. The study categorizes fatal attacks on journalists as: violence against individuals, violence against ideas, violence to stop investigations, and violence against institutions.