Terrains of Media Work; Producing Amateurs and Professionals in the 19th-Century United States. Issue 1 (2nd January 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hamilton, James F.
• Is Part Of: Media history. Volume 29:Issue 1(2023)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 16
• Publication Date: 2023-01-02
• Subjects: Amateurism -- labor -- media work -- newspapers -- periodicals -- professionalism -- self-publishing; Mass media -- History -- Periodicals; Press -- History -- Periodicals; Journalism -- History -- Periodicals; 070.09
• DOI: 10.1080/13688804.2022.2054407
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1368-8804

Abstract

Abstract : This article investigates the reproduction of the foundational terrain of media work as composed of amateur and professional realms through the youth movement of amateur journalism in the late 19th-Century United States. Amateur journalists wrote, typeset and printed journals of essays, commentary, word puzzles and stories, which were circulated primarily among themselves in subcultural networks of reciprocity. A broad cultural analysis characterizes how debates about social change due to industrialization shaped definitions and valuations of amateurism and professionalism. A critical political-economic analysis examines how these changes and debates as refracted and reproduced through the commercialization of literary industries and printing technologies spawned amateur journalism. A critical analysis of surviving autobiographical works by amateur journalists of the day explores the on-the-ground cultural production of amateurism and professionalism through amateur journalism's ascendance, peak and decline. The article concludes by reflecting on the value of these findings for understanding today's media terrain.