Students enrolled in Prof. Kovarik’s media history courses are required to perform historical research and complete a research report in order to earn a passing grade in the class. Research is the key here. This is not a typical “term paper.”
The research begins with an historical question or area of interest and ends with a short informal paper and optional presentation describing your findings.
- Frame a question : What are you interested in? A person, or a controversy, or a place, or a technology?
- Who (an editor / journalist / inventor / producer ) contributed what, and how were they seen in their own time?
- What was the controversy about over _____ ( the Ukraine famine in the 1930s, coverage of Hiroshima in 1945, etc) and how was it seen then (and now?)
- Where was ___ (Tin Pan Alley, Times Square, Herald Square, Abbey Road, Postwar Paris, etc.) and what made it famous in its heyday?
- How was a technology issue like ______ ( stereotyping, talkies, pirate radio, gonzo journalism, the curve in the road, Moore’s law, the cultures of computing, etc) seen at the time it emerged?
- What was it like to ______ (set type, send Morse code, work in a TV or film studio, etc) during a particularly interesting time?
2. Next, find articles about your question:
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers – (New York Times / Washington Post/ etc, from 1850s – 2006)
- Niles Register – 1811 – 1844 has its own database
- Wikipedia articles are not themselves acceptable (because they are not contemporaneous). However, the sources at the bottom of the articles might be helpful.
- News.google.com, newspapers.com and newspaperarchive.com can sometimes turn up interesting contemporary articles from random newspapers. Some of these are paid resources.
- Be sure that you identify the source of the article — sometimes it’s an AP or UP wire service article and not written by reporters in regional newspapers.
- Also be sure to save each pdf of your articles to turn them in along with your paper.
3. Save ten (10) contemporaneous articles and turn them in with your paper. Naturally, the articles should be about one topic and examine some unique aspect of media history from before the 1980s. Also please use ProQuest newspaper archive articles, not just things you randomly come up with in Google searches.
- Contemporaneous — Sources that existed around the same time as your subject. Example: Newspaper articles about American journalist Nelly Bly’s trip around the world as it was happening in 1888 – 1889. Example 2: YouTube video or audio recording of original 1938 NBC radio program featuring Mae West’s “Garden of Eden” sketch, which would be used along with reactions in the press. Example 3: Not acceptable among your 10 sources — A 1990 book about Nelly Bly as a major source. We want contemporaneous sources.
- Authoritative — Published media (books, newspapers, magazines) and some (but not all) digitally published media. Example: Wikipedia can be very helpful but it is not usually authoritative. However, the links and sources used as references on Wikipedia entries are usually authoritative.
- Media-related — The topics will either involve comparisons of media coverage OR an historical topic involving the media itself. No non-media papers will be accepted. Example 1: Acceptable — How the US media covered Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream speech” at the time the speech was given in 1963. Example 2: Not acceptable – General biography of Martin Luther King. Example 3: Acceptable – How Southern newspaper editors like Ralph McGill and James Kilpatrick disagreed about King and the civil rights movement.
- Before 1980 — We want to examine historical questions rather than recent questions about media and society.
4. Write a short report:
Write an original 800 word (or more) document that compares, analyzes and contrasts your findings. It should have footnotes / references (Chicago, APA or other formal style) to the articles you include (and not just links to the pdfs in Proquest.)
You’ll want to answer questions about each article, such as:
— “What were the main kinds of sources?” (government officials, university professors, team coaches, etc)
— “What point of view did the authors take?” (They might be skeptical, enthusiastic, heartwarming, factual, etc).
— How was it written (objective exposition, editorial, story-telling narrative, sensationalistic bombast, etc).
Be sure to turn in the pdf articles with your ms word report.
Please email the instructor with questions.
Good luck.