The roots of a sociology of news: Remembering Mr. Gates and social control in the newsroom

Journalism and Mass Communication Quaterly

Volumn 78, Issue 4, 2001, Pages 641-658

  Reese, Stephen D ^a   Ballinger, Jane ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN   (United States)

^b CALIFORNIA STATE POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0035649463     PISSN: 10776990     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/107769900107800402     Document Type: Article

References (90)

1. Everett Rogers, Communication Technology: The New Media in Society (New York: The Free Press, 1986).
2. Daniel Czitrom, Media and the American Mind: From Morse to Mcluhan (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982); Jesse Delia, "Communication Research: A History," in Handbook of Communication Science, ed. Charles R. Berger and Steven H. Chaffee (Newbury Park: Sage, 1987); Everette E. Dennis. and Ellen A. Wartella, eds., American Communication Research: The Remembered History (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1996); Everett Rogers, A History of Communication Study: A Biographical Approach (New York: The Free Press, 1994); David Sloan, Makers of the Media Mind: Journalism Educators and Their Ideas (Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum, 1990).
3. Daniel Czitrom, Media and the American Mind: From Morse to Mcluhan (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982); Jesse Delia, "Communication Research: A History," in Handbook of Communication Science, ed. Charles R. Berger and Steven H. Chaffee (Newbury Park: Sage, 1987); Everette E. Dennis. and Ellen A. Wartella, eds., American Communication Research: The Remembered History (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1996); Everett Rogers, A History of Communication Study: A Biographical Approach (New York: The Free Press, 1994); David Sloan, Makers of the Media Mind: Journalism Educators and Their Ideas (Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum, 1990).
4. Daniel Czitrom, Media and the American Mind: From Morse to Mcluhan (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982); Jesse Delia, "Communication Research: A History," in Handbook of Communication Science, ed. Charles R. Berger and Steven H. Chaffee (Newbury Park: Sage, 1987); Everette E. Dennis. and Ellen A. Wartella, eds., American Communication Research: The Remembered History (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1996); Everett Rogers, A History of Communication Study: A Biographical Approach (New York: The Free Press, 1994); David Sloan, Makers of the Media Mind: Journalism Educators and Their Ideas (Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum, 1990).
5. Daniel Czitrom, Media and the American Mind: From Morse to Mcluhan (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982); Jesse Delia, "Communication Research: A History," in Handbook of Communication Science, ed. Charles R. Berger and Steven H. Chaffee (Newbury Park: Sage, 1987); Everette E. Dennis. and Ellen A. Wartella, eds., American Communication Research: The Remembered History (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1996); Everett Rogers, A History of Communication Study: A Biographical Approach (New York: The Free Press, 1994); David Sloan, Makers of the Media Mind: Journalism Educators and Their Ideas (Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum, 1990).
6. Daniel Czitrom, Media and the American Mind: From Morse to Mcluhan (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982); Jesse Delia, "Communication Research: A History," in Handbook of Communication Science, ed. Charles R. Berger and Steven H. Chaffee (Newbury Park: Sage, 1987); Everette E. Dennis. and Ellen A. Wartella, eds., American Communication Research: The Remembered History (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1996); Everett Rogers, A History of Communication Study: A Biographical Approach (New York: The Free Press, 1994); David Sloan, Makers of the Media Mind: Journalism Educators and Their Ideas (Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum, 1990).
7. Reviewed in Stephen Reese, "Setting the Media's Agenda: A Power Balance Perspective," in Communication Yearbook 14, ed. James A. Anderson (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1991).
8. Pamela Shoemaker and Stephen Reese, Mediating the Message: Theories of Influence on Mass Media Content, 2d ed. (New York: Longman, 1996).
9. An article is available in Spanish outlining this model: Stephen Reese, "Hacia Una Comprension Del Periodista Global: El Modelo De Investigacion De "Jerarquia De Influencias" (Understanding the Global Journalist: A Hierarchy of Influences)," Comunicacion y sociedad 12 (2, 1999).
10. David Manning White, "The Gatekeeper: A Case Study in the Selection of News," Journalism Quarterly 27 (1950): 383-96.
11. Wilbur Schramm, Mass Communications, 2d ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1960). Both Breed's and White's articles are reprinted in Dan Berkowitz, ed., Social Context of News: A Text-Reader (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1996).
12. Wilbur Schramm, Mass Communications, 2d ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1960). Both Breed's and White's articles are reprinted in Dan Berkowitz, ed., Social Context of News: A Text-Reader (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1996).
13. The Social Science Citation Index shows that White's article has been cited 105 times between 1971 and 1999. Breed's article is ahead with 122 citations during the same period.
14. See Pamela Shoemaker, Gatekeeping, Communication Concepts 3 (Newbury Park: Sage, 1991).
15. The biographical approach is not without criticism, especially from those "objective" social scientists who prefer to keep the observer separate from the observing and find little relevance in personal details. We find, however, that biographical self-reflection by scholars can be a fascinating source of insight into how intellectual work is done. Sociology has provided a number of such reflections, including Bennett Berger, Authors of Their Own Lives: Intellectual Autobiographies by Twenty American Sociologists (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990); Philip Hammond (ed.), Sociologists at Work: Essays on the Craft of Social Research (New York: Basic Books, 1964); and the classic appendix, "On Intellectual Craftsmanship," to C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959).
16. The biographical approach is not without criticism, especially from those "objective" social scientists who prefer to keep the observer separate from the observing and find little relevance in personal details. We find, however, that biographical self-reflection by scholars can be a fascinating source of insight into how intellectual work is done. Sociology has provided a number of such reflections, including Bennett Berger, Authors of Their Own Lives: Intellectual Autobiographies by Twenty American Sociologists (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990); Philip Hammond (ed.), Sociologists at Work: Essays on the Craft of Social Research (New York: Basic Books, 1964); and the classic appendix, "On Intellectual Craftsmanship," to C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959).
17. The biographical approach is not without criticism, especially from those "objective" social scientists who prefer to keep the observer separate from the observing and find little relevance in personal details. We find, however, that biographical self-reflection by scholars can be a fascinating source of insight into how intellectual work is done. Sociology has provided a number of such reflections, including Bennett Berger, Authors of Their Own Lives: Intellectual Autobiographies by Twenty American Sociologists (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990); Philip Hammond (ed.), Sociologists at Work: Essays on the Craft of Social Research (New York: Basic Books, 1964); and the classic appendix, "On Intellectual Craftsmanship," to C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959).
18. For example, Robert Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe: Free Press, 1949).
19. Rogers, Communication Technology.
20. James Carey, "The Chicago School and Mass Communication Research," in American Communication Research: The Remembered History, ed. Everette E. Dennis and Ellen A. Wartella ( Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1996).
21. Rogers, Communication Technology: The New Media in Society.
22. Jean P. Frazier and Cecilie Gaziano, Robert E. Park's Theory of News, Public Opinion and Social Control, Journalism Monographs, no. 64 (Columbia, SC: AEJMC, 1979).
23. Rogers, Communication Technology: The New Media in Society.
24. Both White and Breed served in the War. In 1942 Schramm had invited White to join an informal group meeting in Harold Lasswell's office at the Library of Congress to discuss mass communication research, but officer candidate school made it impossible (personal communication, White to E. Rogers, 17 September 1992). Breed was in the Army Air Corps stationed in Burma.
25. Everett Rogers and Steven Chaffee, "The Past and the Future of Communication Study: Convergence or Divergence?" Journal of Communication 43 (4, 1993).
26. Delia, " Communication Research: A History."
27. Carey, "The Chicago School and Mass Communication Research."
28. Robert Lynd and Helen Lynd, Middletown (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1929).
29. James Coleman, "Columbia in the 1950s," in Authors of Their Own Lives: Intellectual Autobiographies by Twenty American Sociologists, ed. Bennett Berger (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990). As Coleman further explains, "To a student coming into Columbia, then, there were really only two persons at the apex, two persons whose attention one must try to get, two persons whose judgments mattered above all-Merton and Lazarsfeld. This concentration of attention was intensified by another fact as well: to the graduate student, there was no discipline of sociology outside Columbia. Instead we saw a self-confidence, a looking inward with inattention to the outside" (79).
30. Todd Gitlin, "Media Sociology: The Dominant Paradigm," Theory and Society 6 (2, 1978).
31. Joseph T. Klapper, Effects of Mass Communication (New York: Free Press, 1960).
32. F. Gerald Kline, "Theory in Mass Communication Research," in Current Perspectives in Mass Communication Research, ed. F. Gerald Kline and Paul Tichenor (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1972), 26.
33. Alexis S. Tan, Mass Communication Theories and Research, 2d ed. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1985), 347.
34. Paul Lazarsfeld and Robert Merton, "Mass Communication, Popular Taste, and Organized Social Action," in The Process and Effects of Mass Communication, ed. Wilbur Schramm and Donald Roberts (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971).
35. Lazarsfeld and Merton, "Mass Communication, Popular Taste, and Organized Social Action," 568.
36. Lazarsfeld and Merton, "Mass Communication, Popular Taste, and Organized Social Action," 558.
37. Stephen Reese, personal communication with David Manning White, 15 January 1993.
38. Kurt Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science: Selected Theoretical Papers (New York: Harper, 1951).
39. Reese, personal communication with David Manning White.
40. Reese, personal communication with David Manning White.
41. White, "The Gatekeeper: A Case Study in the Selection of News," 390.
42. White, "The Gatekeeper: A Case Study in the Selection of News," 390.
43. White, "The Gatekeeper: A Case Study in the Selection of News," 386.
44. Shoemaker, Gatekeeping, Communication Concepts 3.
45. Walter Gieber, "News Is What Newspapermen Make It," in People, Society and Mass Communications, ed. Lewis A. Dexter and David Manning White (New York: Free Press, 1964).
46. For example, Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw, "Structuring the Unseen Environment," Journal of Communication 27 (2, 1977); D. Charles Whitney and Lee Becker, "Keeping the Gates for Gatekeepers: The Effects of Wire News," Journalism Quarterly 59 (1982): 60-65.
47. For example, Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw, "Structuring the Unseen Environment," Journal of Communication 27 (2, 1977); D. Charles Whitney and Lee Becker, "Keeping the Gates for Gatekeepers: The Effects of Wire News," Journalism Quarterly 59 (1982): 60-65.
48. Reese, personal communication with David Manning White.
49. Reese, personal communication with David Manning White.
50. White, "The Gatekeeper: A Case Study in the Selection of News," 389.
51. White, "The Gatekeeper: A Case Study in the Selection of News," 390.
52. White, "The Gatekeeper: A Case Study in the Selection of News," 390.
53. Bernard Rosenberg and David Manning White, Mass Culture Revisited (New York: Van Nostrand-Reinhold Co., 1971), 19.
54. Reese, personal communication with Warren Breed, 11 and 18 January 1993.
55. Reese, personal communication with Warren Breed.
56. Warren Breed, "Social Control in the Newsroom: A Functional Analysis," Social Forces 33 (1955): 179.
57. Leo Rosten carried out perhaps the first empirical work on reporters (Leo Rosten, The Washington Correspondents [New York: Harcourt, Brace 1937]), before turning his attention to Hollywood (Leo Rosten, Hollywood: The Movie Colony, The Movie Makers [New York: Harcourt, Brace 1941]).
58. Leo Rosten carried out perhaps the first empirical work on reporters (Leo Rosten, The Washington Correspondents [New York: Harcourt, Brace 1937]), before turning his attention to Hollywood (Leo Rosten, Hollywood: The Movie Colony, The Movie Makers [New York: Harcourt, Brace 1941]).
59. Reese, personal communication with Warren Breed.
60. Reese, personal communication with Warren Breed.
61. Reese, personal communication with Warren Breed.
62. Breed, "Social Control in the Newsroom: A Functional Analysis," 187.
63. Breed, "Social Control in the Newsroom: A Functional Analysis," 193.
64. Reese, personal communication with Warren Breed.
65. A.M. Lee, The Daily Newspaper in America: The Evolution of a Social Instrument (New York: Macmillan, 1937).
66. Leo Rosten, The Washington Correspondents (New York: Harcourt, Brace 1937)
67. Reese, personal communication with Warren Breed.
68. Breed, "Social Control in the Newsroom: A Functional Analysis," 193.
69. Breed, "Social Control in the Newsroom: A Functional Analysis," 193.
70. Reese, personal communication with Warren Breed.
71. Reese, personal communication with Warren Breed.
72. Breed, "Social Control in the Newsroom: A Functional Analysis," 194.
73. Reese, personal communication with Warren Breed.
74. James Boylan, "Declarations of Independence," Columbia Journalism Review 25 (November/December, 1986).
75. Daniel Hallin, "The Passing of the 'High Modernism' of American Journalism," Journal of Communication 42 (3, 1992).
76. Reese, personal communication with Warren Breed.
77. Wilbur Schramm and Donald Roberts, The Process and Effects of Mass Communication (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971).
78. Schramm and Roberts, The Process and Effects of Mass Communication, 382.
79. Schramm and Roberts, The Process and Effects of Mass Communication.
80. Michael Schudson, "The Sociology of News Production," Media, Culture & Society 11 (1989).
81. Herbert J. Gans, Deciding What's News (New York: Pantheon, 1979); Gaye Tuchman, Making News (New York: Free Press, 1978); Gaye Tuchman, "Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen's Notions of Objectivity," American Journal of Sociology 77 (1972); Edward J. Epstein, News from Nowhere (New York: Random House, 1973); Mark Fishman, Manufacturing the News (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980); Todd Gitlin, The Whole World Is Watching (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); Harvey L. Molotch and Marilyn Lester, "News as Purposive Behavior: On the Strategic Use of Routine Events, Accidents, and Scandals," American Sociological Review 39 (1974); Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (New York: Basic Books, 1978).
82. Herbert J. Gans, Deciding What's News (New York: Pantheon, 1979); Gaye Tuchman, Making News (New York: Free Press, 1978); Gaye Tuchman, "Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen's Notions of Objectivity," American Journal of Sociology 77 (1972); Edward J. Epstein, News from Nowhere (New York: Random House, 1973); Mark Fishman, Manufacturing the News (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980); Todd Gitlin, The Whole World Is Watching (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); Harvey L. Molotch and Marilyn Lester, "News as Purposive Behavior: On the Strategic Use of Routine Events, Accidents, and Scandals," American Sociological Review 39 (1974); Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (New York: Basic Books, 1978).
83. Herbert J. Gans, Deciding What's News (New York: Pantheon, 1979); Gaye Tuchman, Making News (New York: Free Press, 1978); Gaye Tuchman, "Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen's Notions of Objectivity," American Journal of Sociology 77 (1972); Edward J. Epstein, News from Nowhere (New York: Random House, 1973); Mark Fishman, Manufacturing the News (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980); Todd Gitlin, The Whole World Is Watching (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); Harvey L. Molotch and Marilyn Lester, "News as Purposive Behavior: On the Strategic Use of Routine Events, Accidents, and Scandals," American Sociological Review 39 (1974); Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (New York: Basic Books, 1978).
84. Herbert J. Gans, Deciding What's News (New York: Pantheon, 1979); Gaye Tuchman, Making News (New York: Free Press, 1978); Gaye Tuchman, "Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen's Notions of Objectivity," American Journal of Sociology 77 (1972); Edward J. Epstein, News from Nowhere (New York: Random House, 1973); Mark Fishman, Manufacturing the News (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980); Todd Gitlin, The Whole World Is Watching (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); Harvey L. Molotch and Marilyn Lester, "News as Purposive Behavior: On the Strategic Use of Routine Events, Accidents, and Scandals," American Sociological Review 39 (1974); Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (New York: Basic Books, 1978).
85. Herbert J. Gans, Deciding What's News (New York: Pantheon, 1979); Gaye Tuchman, Making News (New York: Free Press, 1978); Gaye Tuchman, "Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen's Notions of Objectivity," American Journal of Sociology 77 (1972); Edward J. Epstein, News from Nowhere (New York: Random House, 1973); Mark Fishman, Manufacturing the News (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980); Todd Gitlin, The Whole World Is Watching (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); Harvey L. Molotch and Marilyn Lester, "News as Purposive Behavior: On the Strategic Use of Routine Events, Accidents, and Scandals," American Sociological Review 39 (1974); Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (New York: Basic Books, 1978).
86. Herbert J. Gans, Deciding What's News (New York: Pantheon, 1979); Gaye Tuchman, Making News (New York: Free Press, 1978); Gaye Tuchman, "Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen's Notions of Objectivity," American Journal of Sociology 77 (1972); Edward J. Epstein, News from Nowhere (New York: Random House, 1973); Mark Fishman, Manufacturing the News (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980); Todd Gitlin, The Whole World Is Watching (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); Harvey L. Molotch and Marilyn Lester, "News as Purposive Behavior: On the Strategic Use of Routine Events, Accidents, and Scandals," American Sociological Review 39 (1974); Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (New York: Basic Books, 1978).
87. Herbert J. Gans, Deciding What's News (New York: Pantheon, 1979); Gaye Tuchman, Making News (New York: Free Press, 1978); Gaye Tuchman, "Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen's Notions of Objectivity," American Journal of Sociology 77 (1972); Edward J. Epstein, News from Nowhere (New York: Random House, 1973); Mark Fishman, Manufacturing the News (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980); Todd Gitlin, The Whole World Is Watching (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); Harvey L. Molotch and Marilyn Lester, "News as Purposive Behavior: On the Strategic Use of Routine Events, Accidents, and Scandals," American Sociological Review 39 (1974); Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (New York: Basic Books, 1978).
88. Herbert J. Gans, Deciding What's News (New York: Pantheon, 1979); Gaye Tuchman, Making News (New York: Free Press, 1978); Gaye Tuchman, "Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen's Notions of Objectivity," American Journal of Sociology 77 (1972); Edward J. Epstein, News from Nowhere (New York: Random House, 1973); Mark Fishman, Manufacturing the News (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980); Todd Gitlin, The Whole World Is Watching (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); Harvey L. Molotch and Marilyn Lester, "News as Purposive Behavior: On the Strategic Use of Routine Events, Accidents, and Scandals," American Sociological Review 39 (1974); Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (New York: Basic Books, 1978).
89. Stephen Reese, personal communication with Gaye Tuchman, 1 October 1993.
90. Examined in Stephen Reese, "Framing Public Life," in Framing Public Life, ed. Stephen D. Reese, Oscar Gandy, and August E. Grant (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2001).