During the 19th century, newspapers began to expand and appear outside the cities of the Eastern United States. From the 1830s onward the penny press began to play a major role in American journalism.

1. American Media History
Introduction:
The U.S. media today is frequently known as the Fourth Estate, an appellation that
suggests the press shares equal stature with the other branches of government created by the
Constitution. The press,or "Fourth Estate" plays avital role as a guardian of U.S. democracy. That
role is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1789, stipulating
that Congress not enact any laws abridging freedom of the press.
U.S. media have traveled a long road since the first newspaper was published in Boston,
Massachusetts in 1690. Within 50 years, magazines also began appearing in several major
American cities. The advent of commercial radio at the beginning of the 20th century ended
print's monopoly of the media in America, giving nationwide and, later, global audiences
unprecedented access to live audio programs. Television, an even more powerful medium,
entered the sceneshortly after World War II. Defying predictions of their decline, the other media
have diversified to confront television's dominant appeal. Satellite technology has allowed U.S.
TV networks, especially cable networks, to reach overseas audiences anywhere on the globe.
Interactive media, fueled by the advance of digital technology and the growing convergence of
the computer, telephone and cable television, represent the principal trend of the end of the
20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries.
The print and electronic media in the United States, offering wide news and entertainment
options, are a pervasive element in American society. According to a recent survey by Media
mark Research, 98% of Americans have a television; 82% of those watch "prime time" and 71%
cable programming in an average week. 84% percent of Americans listen to radio regularly. 79%
percent are newspaper readers. 45% percent of the whole American population has access to
the Internet, while for certain demographic groups that percentage reaches a high of close to
70%.
Economics plays a major role in shaping the information served up to the U.S. public in
newspapers, on radio and television, and now on the Internet. While nonprofit and advocacy
organizations have significantvoices,most of the public's primary sources of information -- major
urban newspapers, the weekly news magazines, and the broadcast and cable networks -- are in
business to make money. Media and communications, with revenues of over $242 billion, are
one of America's largest business groups. In 2000, adult consumers of media information and
amusement products spent over $675 a person. Advertisers spent an additional $215 billion to
bring their products to the attention of the American public. The media are a great engine in
American society, providing jobs for hundreds of thousands of technicians, writers, artists,
performers, and intellectuals and shaping attitudes and beliefs.
Media organizations are not part of the American political structure. Voters do not elect
journalists, nor do journalists hold any formal powers or privileges (aside from those stemming

2. from the First Amendment right to a free press). Research also shows that the mass media do
not exercisedirect influence over people, either officials or regular voters. Neither endorsements
nor bias in news coverage sways individuals into accepting the views of reporters or publishers.
Nevertheless, media organizations (and the journalistic profession) do enjoy various means of
indirect influence over political decisions. They shape how Americans view candidates early in an
election process and frame the terms of political debate. They focus the attention of regular
Americans on particular social problems, influencing which issues politicians consider worthy of
attention. And members of the bureaucracy often use news articles as an indirect means to
communicate with each other or to learn what is going on in other parts of the government. For
these reasons and others, the mass media are critical players in the American political system.
Media in United States:
Media in the United States consist of several types of media: television, radio, cinema,
newspapers, magazines, and web sites. The U.S. also has a strong music industry. Many of the
media are controlled by large for-profit corporations who reap revenue from advertising,
subscriptions, and sale of copyrighted material. American media conglomerates tend to be
leading global players, generating large revenues as well as large opposition in many parts of the
world. With the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, further deregulation and
convergence are under way, leading to mega-mergers, further concentration of media
ownership, and the emergence of multinational media conglomerates. These mergers enable
tighter control of information. Currently, five corporations control roughly 90% of the media.
Critics allege that localism, local news and other content at the community level, media spending
and coverage of news, and diversity of ownership and views have suffered because of these
processes of media concentration.
Theories to explain the success of such companies include reliance on certain policies of the
American federal government or a tendency to natural monopolies in the industry, in a corporate
media bias.
The organization Reporters Without Borders compiles and publishes an annual ranking of
countries based upon the organization's assessment of their press freedom records. In 2013–14
United States was ranked 46th out of 180 countries, a drop of thirteen points from the preceding
year. On the future of Spanish-language media in the U.S., Alberto Avendaño, ex-director of El
Tiempo Latino/Washington Post, claimedthat "Hispanic-American" news coverage in the English-
language media is "absolutely pathetic," but he was optimistic, since every month, Latinos come
of age, so a social and demographic shift is inevitable.
History of Print Media in US:
Early news was presented to local populations through the print press. While several
colonies had printers and occasional newspapers, high literacy rates combined with the desire

3. for self-government made Boston aperfect location for the creation of anewspaper, and the first
continuous press was started there in 1704.
Newspapers spread information about local events and activities. The Stamp Tax of 1765 raised
costs for publishers, however, leading several newspapers to fold under the increased cost of
paper. The repeal of the Stamp Tax in 1766 quieted concerns for a short while, but editors and
writers soon began questioning the right of the British to rule over the colonies. Newspapers took
part in the effort to inform citizens of British misdeeds and incite attempts to revolt. Readership
across the colonies increased to nearly forty thousand homes (among a total population of two
million), and daily papers sprang up in large cities.
Although newspapers united for a common cause during the Revolutionary War, the divisions
that occurred during the Constitutional Convention and the United States’ early history created
a change. The publication of the Federalist Papers, as well as the Anti-Federalist Papers, in the
1780s, moved the nation into the party press era, in which partisanship and political party loyalty
dominated the choice of editorial content. One reason was cost. Subscriptions and
advertisements did not fully cover printing costs, and political parties stepped in to support
presses that aided the parties and their policies. Papers began printing party propaganda and
messages, even publicly attacking political leaders like George Washington. Despite the
antagonism of the press, Washington and several other founders felt that freedom of the press
was important for creating an informed electorate. Indeed, freedom of the press is enshrined in
the Bill of Rights in the first amendment.
News Papers:
As the first Europeans settledthe land that would come to be calledthe United States of America,
the newspaper was an essential medium. At first, newspapers helped the Europeans stay
connected with events back home. But as the people developed their own way of life—their own
culture—newspapers helped giveexpression to that culture. PoliticalscientistBenedict Anderson
has argued that newspapers also helped forge a sense of national identity by treating readers
across the country as part of one unified group with common goals and values. Newspapers, he
said, helped create an “imagined community.”
The United States continued to develop, and the newspaper was the perfect medium for the
increasingly urbanized Americans of the 19th century, who could no longer get their local news
merely through gossip and word of mouth. These Americans were living in an unfamiliar world,
and newspapers and other publications helped them negotiate the rapidly changing world. The
Industrial Revolution meant that people had more leisure time and more money, and media
helped them figure out how to spend both.
In the 1830s, the major daily newspapers faced a new threat with the rise of the penny press—
newspapers that were low-priced broadsheets. These papers served as a cheaper, more

4. sensationaldaily news source and privileged news of murder and adventure over the dry political
news of the day. While earlier newspapers catered to a wealthier, more educated audience, the
penny press attempted to reach a wide swath of readers through cheap prices and entertaining
(often scandalous) stories. The penny press can be seen as the forerunner to today’s gossip-
hungry tabloids.
Decline of News Paper
After being widely successful in the 20th century, newspapers have declined in their influence
and penetration into American households over the years. The U.S. does not have a national
paper. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today are the most circulated
newspapers in the United States and are sold in most U.S. cities.
Although the Times' primary audience has always been the people of New York City, the New
York Times has gradually become the dominant national "newspaper of record". Apart from its
daily nationwide distribution, the term means that back issues arearchived on microfilm by every
decent-sized public library in the nation, and the Times' articles are often cited by both historians
and judges as evidence that a major historical event occurred on a certain date. The Los Angeles
Times and the Wall Street Journal are also newspapers of record to a lesser extent. Although USA
Today has tried to establish itself as anational paper, it has been widely derided by the academic
world as the "McPaper" and is not subscribed to (let alone archived) by most libraries.
Apart from the newspapers just mentioned, all major metropolitan areas have their own local
newspapers. Typically, a metropolitan area will support at most one or two major newspapers,
with many smaller publications targeted towards audiences. Although the cost of publishing has
increased over the years, the price of newspapers has generally remained low, forcing
newspapers to rely more on advertising revenue and on articles provided by a major news agency
wire service, such as the Associated Press, Reuters or Bloomberg News for their national and
world coverage.
With very few exceptions, all the newspapers in the U.S. are privately owned, either by large
chains such as Gannett or McClatchy, which own dozens or even hundreds of newspapers; by
small chains that own a handful of papers; or in a situation that is increasingly rare, by individuals
or families.
Most general-purpose newspapers are either being printed one time a week, usually on Thursday
or Friday, or are printed daily. Weekly newspapers tend to have much smaller circulation and are
more prevalent in rural communities or small towns. Major cities often have "alternative
weeklies"to complement the mainstream dailypapers, for example, New York City's VillageVoice
or Los Angeles' L.A. Weekly, to name two of the best-known. Major cities may alsosupport a local
business journal, trade papers relating to local industries, and papers for local ethnic and social
groups.

5. Probably due to competition from other media, the number of daily newspapers in the U.S. has
declined over the past half-century, according to Editor & Publisher, the trade journal of
American newspapers. In particular, the number of evening newspapers has fallenby almost one-
half since 1970, while the number of morning editions and Sunday editions has grown.
For comparison, in 1950, there were 1,772 daily papers (and 1,450 – or about 70 percent – of
them were evening papers) while in 2000, there were 1,480 daily papers (and 766—or about
half—of them were evening papers.)
Daily newspaper circulation is also slowly declining in America, partly due to the near-demise of
two-newspaper towns, as the weaker newspapers in most cities have folded.
The primary source of newspaper income is advertising – in the form of "classifieds" or inserted
advertising circulars – rather than circulation income. However, sincethe late 1990s,this revenue
source has been directly challenged by Web sites like eBay (for sales of secondhand items),
Monster.com (jobs), and Craigslist (everything).
Additionally, as investigative journalism declined at major daily newspapers in the 2000s, many
reporters formed their own non-profit investigative newsrooms. Examples include ProPublica on
the national level, Texas Tribune at the state level and Voice of OC at the local level.
The largest newspapers (by circulation) in the United States are USA Today, The Wall Street
Journal, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.
In August 2019 it was announced that New Media Investment Group had agreed to buy Gannett,
and operations would continue under the Gannett rather than GateHouse name, at the Gannett
headquarters but under New Media's CEO. The acquisition of Gannett by New Media Investment
Group was completed on November 19, 2019, making the combined company the largest
newspaper publisher in the United States. Immediately after the merger was finalized, all
GateHouse Media URLs began redirecting to Gannett.com.
LaOpinion is the most read newspaper website in the United States, reaching more than 6 million
readers each month. It is the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the United States and the
second-most read newspaper in Los Angeles (after The Los Angeles Times).
The Rise of Radio:
In the early decades of the 20th century, the first major non-print forms of mass media—
film and radio—exploded in popularity. Radios, which were less expensive than telephones and
widely availableby the 1920s,especiallyhad the unprecedented ability of allowing huge numbers
of people to listen to the same event at the same time. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge’s
prelection speech reached more than 20 million people. Radio was a boon for advertisers, who
now had access to a large and captive audience.

6. The reach of radio also further helped forge an American culture. The medium was able to
downplay regional differences and encourage a unified sense of the American lifestyle—a
lifestyle that was increasingly driven and defined by consumer purchases.
The post-World War II era in the United States was marked by prosperity, and by the introduction
of a seductive new form of mass communication: television. In 1946, there were about 17,000
televisions in the entire United States. Within seven years, two-thirds of American households
owned at least one set. As the United States’ gross national product (GNP) doubled in the 1950s,
and again in the 1960s, the American home became firmly ensconced as a consumer unit. Along
with a television, the typical U.S. family owned a car and a house in the suburbs, all of which
contributed to the nation’s thriving consumer-based economy.
Initially, radios were implemented as a noncommercial communication medium for endeavors
such as military efforts or sea travel. Per the same The Colonial Williamsburg article, Guglielmo
Marconi “Developed, demonstrated and marketed the first successful long-distance wireless
telegraph and in 1901 broadcast the first transatlantic radio signal.” Following this transmission,
there were many experiments with transmitting radio signals.Individuals broadcasted to test the
waters; however, nothing came out of these broadcasts for some time. At the time, this was a
colossal jump from the previous print method of newspapers. Individuals did not have to wait to
have the news delivered or pick up newspapers. They could simply tune in to a local station from
the comfort of their own homes and digest information on current events. An added benefit of
radio broadcasts was the ability to not only audibly receive news, but to receive it in real time.
Newspapers and print media could only be taken in after events took place, but radio broadcasts
were able to cover live events. According to an article published by Encyclopedia Britannica, with
contributors Randy Skretvedt and Christopher H. Sterling, “By 1928, CBS and NBC were providing
full live coverage direct from the Democratic and Republican conventions.” In addition to sport
and political coverage, radio also allowed the distribution of music. Not only could music be
consumed through methods suchas record players, but it could also now be heard on broadcasts
over the air. Radio stations and hosts enjoyed great success, however that was soon
overshadowed by the shift to Television and digital media.
In the early decades of the 20th century, the first major non-print forms of mass media—film and
radio—exploded in popularity. Radios, which were less expensive than telephones and widely
available by the 1920s, especially had the unprecedented ability of allowing huge numbers of
people to listen to the same event at the same time. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge’s
prelection speech reached more than 20 million people. Radio was a boon for advertisers, who
now had access to a large and captive audience. An early advertising consultant claimed that the
early days of radio were “a glorious opportunity for the advertising man to spread his sales
propaganda” thanks to “a countless audience, sympathetic, pleasure seeking, enthusiastic,
curious, interested, approachable in the privacy of their homes

7. The reach of radio also further helped forge an American culture. The medium was able to
downplay regional differences and encourage a unified sense of the American lifestyle—a
lifestyle that was increasingly driven and defined by consumer purchases.
The post-World War II era in the United States was marked by prosperity, and by the introduction
of a seductive new form of mass communication: television. In 1946, there were about 17,000
televisions in the entire United States. Within seven years, two-thirds of American households
owned at least one set. As the United States’ gross national product (GNP) doubled in the 1950s,
and again in the 1960s, the American home became firmly ensconced as a consumer unit. Along
with a television, the typical U.S. family owned a car and a house in the suburbs, all of which
contributed to the nation’s thriving consumer-based economy.
The shift to Television:
In the 1940’s, television made its way to America. According to an article from The
University of Wisconsin, Madison; “Television sales took off in the late 1940’s following the start
of individual stations in the largest cities.” Because starting and maintaining a television station
is very expensive, this undertaking was initially limited to big cities. The article states that “Of the
102,000 TV sets in the United States in early 1948, two-thirds were in the New York area.” The
television served as a centralized element of the home since it combined everything that print,
and radio could provide, in addition to expanding on those capabilities. Television has evolved
over the years, from grainy black and white broadcasts to ultra-HD screens with internet and
streaming capabilities. Televisions used to be seen as a luxury, with only 0.4 percent of the U.S.
owning a set in 1948. In the years after its release, that percentage increased, and continues to
increase to the point where televisions are now seen as commonplace, and it is not out of the
ordinary to have multiple sets in one household. With the increasing connectivity of digital
devices, TV is complemented by the accessibility of the internet and digital media such as
podcasting.
Broadcast television was the dominant form of mass media. There were just three major
networks, and they controlled over 90 percent of the news programs, live events, and sitcoms
viewed by Americans. On some nights, close to half the nation watched the same show! Some
social critics argued that television was fostering a homogenous, conformist culture by
reinforcing ideas about what “normal” American life looked like. But television also contributed
to the counterculture of the 1960s. The Vietnam War was the nation’s first televised military
conflict, and nightly images of war footage and war protestors helped intensify the nation’s
internal conflicts.
Broadcast technology, including radio and television, had such a hold of the American
imagination that newspapers and other print media found themselves having to adapt to the
new media landscape. Print media was more durable and easily archived and allowed users more

8. flexibility in terms of time—once a person had purchased a magazine, he could read it whenever
and wherever he’d like. Broadcast media, in contrast, usually aired programs on a fixed schedule,
which allowed it to both provide a sense of immediacy but also impermanence—until the advent
of digital video recorders in the 21st century, it was impossible to pause and rewind a television
broadcast.
Cable Televisions
The media world faced drastic changes once again in the 1980s and 1990s with the spread of
cabletelevision. During the early decades of television, viewers had alimited number of channels
from which to choose. In 1975, the three major networks accounted for 93 percent of all
television viewing. By 2004, however, this share had dropped to 28.4 percent of total viewing,
thanks to the spread of cabletelevision. Cableproviders allowed viewers a wide menu of choices,
including channels specifically tailored to people who wanted to watch only golf, weather, classic
films, sermons, or videos of sharks. Still, until the mid-1990s, television was dominated by the
three large networks. The Telecommunications Act of 1996, an attempt to foster competition by
deregulating the industry, resulted in many mergers and buyouts of small companies by large
companies. The broadcast spectrum in many places was in the hands of a few large corporations.
In 2003, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) loosened regulation even further,
allowing a single company to own 45 percent of a single market (up from 25 percent in 1982).
Wireless Technology for Televisions
Not long after the telegraph, wireless communication (which eventually led to the development
of radio, television, and other broadcast media) emerged as an extension of telegraph
technology. Although many 19th-century inventors, including Nikola Tesla, had a hand in early
wireless experiments, it was Italian-born Guglielmo Marconi who is recognized as the developer
of the first practical wireless radio system. This mysterious invention, where sounds seemed to
magically travel through the air, captured the world’s imagination. Early radio was used for
military communication, but soon the technology entered the home. The radio mania that swept
the country inspired hundreds of applications for broadcasting licenses, some from newspapers
and other news outlets, while other radio station operators included retail stores, schools, and
even cities. In the 1920s, large media networks—including the National Broadcasting Company
(NBC) and the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)—were launched, and they soon began to
dominate the airwaves. In 1926, they owned 6.4 percent of U.S. broadcasting stations; by 1931,
that number had risento 30 percent’s Briggs and Peter Burke, A SocialHistory of the Media: From
Gutenberg to the Internet (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2005).
The 19th-century development of photographic technologies would lead to the later innovations
of cinema and television. As with wireless technology, several inventors independently came up
with photography at the same time, among them the French inventors Joseph Niepce and Louis
Daguerre, and British scientist William Henry Fox Talbot. In the United States, George Eastman
developed the Kodak camera in 1888, banking on the hope that Americans would welcome an

9. inexpensive, easy-to-use camera into their homes, as they had with the radio and telephone.
Moving pictures were first seen around the turn of the century, with the first U.S. projection hall
opening in Pittsburgh in 1905. By the 1920s, Hollywood had already created its first stars, most
notably Charlie Chaplin. By the end of the 1930s, Americans were watching color films with full
sound, including Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz.
Television, which consists of an image being converted to electrical impulses, transmitted
through wires or radio waves, and then reconverted into images, existed before World War II but
really began to take off in the 1950s. In 1947, there were 178,000 television sets made in the
United States; five years later, there were 15 million. Radio, cinema, and live theater all saw a
decline in the face of this new medium that allowed viewers to be entertained with sound and
moving pictures without having to leave their homes.
How was this powerful new medium going to be operated? After much debate, the United States
opted for the market. Competing commercial stations (including the radio powerhouses of CBS
and NBC) owned stations and sold advertising and commercial-driven programming dominated.
Britain took another track with its government-managed British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
Funding was driven by licensing fees instead of advertisements. In contrast to the American
system, the BBC strictly regulated the length and character of commercials that could be aired.
U.S. television, propelled by prosperity, advertising and increasingly powerful networks,
flourished. By the beginning of 1955, there were 36 million television sets in the United States,
and 4.8 million in all of Europe.
New Media:
The New Media Institute defines new media as “a catchall term used to define all that is
related to the internet and the interplay between technology, images and sound.” That's in
contrast to “old media,” which PcMag defines as all forms of communication that came before
digital technology, including “radio and TV and printed materials such as books and magazines.”
New media is any media – from newspaper articles and blogs to music and podcasts – that are
delivered digitally. From a website or email to mobile phones and streaming apps, any internet-
related form of communication can be considered new media.
Pre-internet Roots
In a sense, social media began on May 24, 1844, with a series of electronic dots and dashes
tapped out by hand on a telegraph machine.
The first electronic message from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., proved Samuel Morse
understood the historic ramifications of his scientific achievement: “What hath God wrought?”
he wrote.

10. A recent article in The Washington Post, “Before Twitter and Facebook, There Was Morse Code:
Remembering Social Media’s True Inventor,” details the history and relevance of Morse code,
complete with early versions of today’s “OMG” and “LOL.”
While the roots of digital communication run deep, most contemporary accounts of the modern
origins of today’s internet and social media point to the emergence in 1969 of the Advanced
Research Projects Agency Network — the ARPANET.
This early digital network, created by the United States Department of Defense, allowed
scientists at four interconnected universities to share software, hardware, and other data.
In 1987, the direct precursor to today’s internet came into being when the National Science
Foundation launched a more robust, nationwide digital network known as the NSFNET. A decade
later, in 1997, the first true social media platform was launched.
The Launch of Social Sites
In the 1980s and ’90s, according to “The History of Social Networking” on the technology news
site Digital Trends, the internet’s growth enabled the introduction of online communication
services such as CompuServe, America Online, and Prodigy. They introduced users to digital
communication through email, bulletin board messaging, and real-time online chatting.
This gave rise to the earliest social media networks, beginning with the short-lived Six Degrees
profile uploading service in 1997.
This service was followed in 2001 by Friendster. These rudimentary platforms attracted millions
of users and enabled email address registration and basic online networking.
Weblogs, or blogs, another early form of digital social communication, began to gain popularity
with the 1999 launch of the LiveJournal publishing site. This coincided with the launch of the
Blogger publishing platform by the tech company Pyra Labs, which was purchased by Google in
2003.
In 2002, LinkedIn was founded as a networking site for career-minded professionals. By 2020, it
had grown to more than 675 million users worldwide. It remains the social media site of choice
for job seekers as well as human resources managers searching for qualified candidates.
Two other major forays into social media collapsed after a burst of initial success. In 2003,
Myspace launched. By 2006, it was the most visited website on the planet, spurred by users’
ability to share new music directly on their profile pages.
By 2008, it was eclipsed by Facebook. In 2011, Myspace was purchased by musician Justin
Timberlake for $35 million, but it has since become a social media afterthought.

11. Google’s attempt to elbow its way into the social media landscape, Google+, launched in 2012. A
rocky existence came to an end in 2018, after the private information of nearly 500,000 Google+
users was compromised by a data security breach.
References:
 Lars Willnatand DavidH. Weaver. 2014. The American Journalist in the DigitalAge:
Key Findings. Bloomington, IN: School of Journalism, Indiana University.
 Wikipedia
 Shanto Iyengar. 2016. Media Politics: A Citizen’s Guide, 3rd ed. New York.
 Fellow. American Media History
 Baum and Kernell, "Has Cable Ended the Golden Age of Presidential Television?
 John Zaller. 2003. "A New Standard of News Quality: Burglar Alarms for the
Monitorial Citizen," Political Communication 20, No. 2: 109–130.
 Matthew Baum. 2003. "Soft News and Political Knowledge: Evidence of Absence
or Absence of Evidence?" Political Communication 20, No. 2: 173–190.
 "Public Knowledge of Current Affairs Little Changed by News and Information
Revolutions," Pew Research Center, 15 April 2007; "What You Know Depends on
What You Watch: Current Events Knowledge across Popular News Sources,"
Fairleigh Dickinson University, 3 May 2012.
 Markus Prior. 2003. "Any Good News in Soft News? The Impact of Soft News
Preference on Political Knowledge," Political Communication 20, No. 2: 149–171.
 Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States. New York: Harper Perennial
Modern Classics, 2005. p. 671.
 Converging Media, Diverging Politics: A Political Economy of News Media in the
United States and Canada. Edited by David Skinner, James R. Compton, and
Michael Gasher, Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. Robert William Jensen, review
essayof"Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times,"
published in The Texas Observer, September 17, 1999.