The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications [Paperback]

Paul Starr (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0465081940 | ISBN-13: 978-0465081943

America's leading role in today's information revolution may seem simply to reflect its position as the world's dominant economy and most powerful state. But by the early nineteenth century, when the United States was neither a world power nor a primary center of scientific discovery, it was already a leader in communications-in postal service and newspaper publishing, then in development of the telegraph and telephone networks, later in the whole repertoire of mass communications.In this wide-ranging social history of American media, from the first printing press to the early days of radio, Paul Starr shows that the creation of modern communications was as much the result of political choices as of technological invention. With his original historical analysis, Starr examines how the decisions that led to a state-run post office and private monopolies on the telegraph and telephone systems affected a developing society. He illuminates contemporary controversies over freedom of information by exploring such crucial formative issues as freedom of the press, intellectual property, privacy, public access to information, and the shaping of specific technologies and institutions. America's critical choices in these areas, Starr argues, affect the long-run path of development in a society and have had wide social, economic, and even military ramifications. The Creation of the Media not only tells the history of the media in a new way; it puts America and its global influence into a new perspective.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this engrossing, panoramic history of the development of American media, Pulitzer winner Starr (The Social Transformation of American Medicine) ranges from our nation's founding, when the Constitution made the postal service the one nationalized industry and the Bill of Rights denied the federal government any role in regulating the press, to the eve of WWII, when commercial radio broadcasting flourished under very different cultural, political and economic conditions. Throughout, Starr shows that our country's original impulse to promote the postal service and press as part of its vision of nation building established a pattern of support for an open, continent-wide market that would assume different forms and policies as new waves of media were introduced. Starr brilliantly argues, however, that the government preference for keeping things decentralized was finally challenged by the advent of the telegraph, as its technology and associated economies of scale centralized the communications industry. Confronting thorny new issues of monopoly and threats to the guaranteed rights of free expression and individual privacy, the country then had no choice but to take on a regulatory role. Starr vividly demonstrates how complicated that role became with media like motion pictures and broadcasting, as the nation experienced immigration, urbanization and major cultural shifts: suddenly, counter forces in favor of moral regulation were petitioning the government to use all of its power to restrain mass media. The culture wars had begun.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Despite all the talk about the information revolution, Starr, Princeton professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Social Transformation of American Medicine (1984), notes that the so-called revolution has been in process for at least a century, punctuated by several innovations and political and social bumps in the road along the way. In this wide-ranging history, Starr explores the political, social, and economic factors that have shaped our modern communications systems and industries. The information age has been shaped as much by political forces as by technological and economic developments. The founding of a liberal republic on a continental scale had the unintended consequence of making the U.S. an international communications power even before it was a world economic power. Starr traces the early-nineteenth-century development of the postal service, newspaper publishing, and the telegraph and telephone and their influences in establishing the early leadership of the U.S. in communications. But he also examines the political issues surrounding press and individual rights, including censorship, press freedom, and intellectual-property rights, and the concentration of media ownership. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (April 6, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465081940
• ISBN-13: 978-0465081943
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.3 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #399,056 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended! November 21, 2004

By Rolf Dobelli HALL OF FAMETOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

International in scope, immensely detailed and authoritative, this study successfully incorporates the evolution of technology, laws, political policy and social development to put the origins of modern media into context. This historical perspective is long overdue. Since media development is actually the story of societal development, author Paul Starr does a tremendous job of detailing the roles of such diverse factors as innovation, invention, patronage, luck, law and competition, all of which shaped the media's development and helped determine its ultimate societal impact. This book is refreshingly light on political criticism, so each set of facts stands on its own. While Starr occasionally meanders from the main topic, the book's rich detail shows that he clearly enjoyed his research and writing. We consider his book essential reading for anyone interested in new and old media and how they were - and are - influenced by their societies.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars MEDIA & CAPITALISM January 12, 2007

By Stephen Scott

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is by far the most exhaustive reading on the creation, growth, and perpetuation of media I have ever read.
At the outset, this is not a light read. Laced with history, the sociology of people within history, and trends operating in American and European culture, this is for serious students of both history and media. For that crowd, it will be a very pleasant read.
I give high praise to Paul Starr for being able to outline not only the growth of media and opinion, but also putting the growth in light of America's capitalistism and industrial strength.
He starts out by analyzing how European Nations like France and England tried to promote literacy through newsprint and postal services. He then outlines how those measures spilled into the United States during the Colonial Period.
Of course, newspapers were only the tip of the iceberg. Starr carefully analyzes how new inventions like the telephone, telegraph, film, and radio were used heavily for capitalistic gain as well as entertainment. At first, the U.S. Supreme Court was reticent to recognize First Amendment protection to these new mediums.
He also compares and contrasts Europe's tendency to nationalize many inventions instead of letting the market allow inventors to make money on their projects. Meticulously, he shows how the U.S. Navy tried to squelch Marconi's patent for wireless radio, and eventually how the Radio Act of 1927 preserved both the national and private interest.
In the end, Starr seems to point out that American Capitalism was instrumental not only in creating the media, but also allowing it to diversify and eventually find the same protection as print media--and eventually find a huge diversification in points of view.
Of course, all along he finds the naysayers like the Catholic League, the Hayes Code, and the Book Publishers Code that operated out of a fear of the public who did not trust these new medias.
Starr is a talented writer of history and can bring the elements related to new medias with such deft and articulation. He keeps the attention, occassionaly straying from the subject, but returning before interest is lost. Moreover, he does real well in keeping his own biases and prejudices aside, simply telling history instead of trying to interpret everything as either a conservative backlash, or a liberal trick.
Kudos to Starr. I look forward to his future endeavors.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars What Makes America Great? February 27, 2008

By J. Krohn

Format:Hardcover

Paul Starr examines the development of communication in America and how it caused American democracy to develop differently from European powers.

Starr lays out the argument "that the United States has followed a distinctive developmental path in communications ever since the American Revolution. The origins of that path lie in the country's founding as a liberal republic and its response to the peculiar challenges of building a nation on a continental scale." (pg. 2) Starr sees the role of communications, especially newspapers and the way the Post Office was used to subsidize the press along with the restraint in state authority as the key to place the United States on a course that sharply diverged from the patterns in Britain and the rest of Europe. Newspapers played an important part in the development of the United States. American papers focused on news with political commentary added for color while European papers focused more on literary essays. This made newspapers more popular with the masses in America. From this beginning, Starr continues to follow the development of film, radio and TV along with the recent growth in the Internet. In almost all cases, the major inventions or improvements in communications occured in the U.S. The role of a large educated middle class and the ability to communicate have for Starr resulted in our liberal form of democracy.

Read this along with Michael Linds "The American Way of Strategy" to gain a new perspective of why the United States is currently involved in Iraq and Afghanistan.