Articles on media and journalism. General perspective: anti-declinist. Typical approach: historical. Arguments in favor of (surprisingly): short soundbites, the intellectual potential of moving images, the digital manipulation of images and the music of aging rock stars. Analogies drawn from earlier communications revolutions: the arrival of radio and, in particular, the invention of writing and the European printing press.
Complete list of articles on media by Mitchell Stephens.
See also the books the rise of the image the fall of the word and A History of News.
More essays with New York Media Circle.
Articles on an underreported subject: contemporary thought. These dispatches from "the idea beat" include profiles of the philosophers Jacques Derrida and Jurgen Habermas, and the literary theorist Stephen Greenblatt, and reporting on deconstruction, the new historicism, postmordernism, postmodern psychology, globalization and time in physics.
Complete list of articles by Mitchell Stephens.
the rise of the image the fall of the word -- our communications revolution looked at from the perspective of past communications revolutions. Argues that the artistic and intellectual potential of moving images is just beginning to be realized.
"A fascinating, counterintuitive, tour de force" -- Wilson Quarterly.
A History of News -- What's news? Why the human interest in news? Why is that news so often concerned with violence and sex? How has news changed over the millennia? An extended, international, historical look at journalism.
"Thorough, scrupulous and witty...in all respects first rate, and original, work" -- Washington Post.
Broadcast News -- long the most widely used radio and television journalism text.
Writing and Reporting the News -- popular introduction to newspaper journalism.
