| Instructor: Ann Colbert, Journalism Program Coordinator | |
| Office: NF 343 | Office hours: MT 1:30-3:00 p.m.; R 9:00-10:00 a.m. |
| Office Phone: 481-6685 | e-mail: colbert@ipfw.edu |
Class is designed to meet the women's studies goals, which follow.
Because of the importance of an historical understanding, we will study the development and history of women in the history of journalism from the 19th Century to the present. We will discuss current issues confronting women and their image in the media and role in producing media. You will be asked to learn to use the Internet, to read reserved articles at the library, and to keep up with the reading assignments from two texts available at the bookstore. The latter are Inarticulate Longings: The Ladies' Home Journal, Gender, and the Promises of Consumer Culture by Jennifer Scanlon, and From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies by Molly Haskell.
| Reading Assignments and Topic Outline | |
|---|---|
| Week one: Women Journalists Active in Past | Historical overview, Read, on reserve, in Pamela Creedon's book (purple one) article by Susan Henry called "Changing …" The item should also be online. Read, also, pages 1-70 in Taking Their Place: A Documentary History of Women and Journalism by Maurine H. Beasley and Sheila J. Gibbons. |
| Week two: Women, Periodicals and Reform | Meet Monday in Neff B73 to explore online sites important to our understanding. Read pages 71-110 in Beasley and Gibbons, on reserve. Or alternatively, read online "From Widow Printer to Big City Reporter" which has been copied from Up From the Footnote by Marion Marzolf. We will discuss niche journalism as represented by the African-American press, abolition press, religious press, and suffrage periodicals. In examining the beginnings of p.r. and advertising, we will look at P.T. Barnum biography program. In further examinations of abolition journalism, we will look at Frederick Douglass's life and discuss more about Jane Swisshelm. |
| Week three: Women and Magazines | Magazines as niche journalism. Advertising and magazines. Read Inarticulate Longings: The Ladies' Home Journal, Gender and the Promises of Consumer Culture by Jennifer Scanlon. |
| Week four: Women in the Movies, Issues of Image | We will examine some of the roles women have played in movies and some of the stereotypes which have been created by those roles. Read pages 1-152 in From Reverence to Rape by Molly Haskell. Several pieces of movies showing women as newspaper writers will be added to those about image of women in general. Guidelines for the written report will be distributed by Thursday. |
| Week five: Issues of Money and Power | Finish Haskell book. We will also look more thoroughly at the change brought about by urbanization and mass media. Take home final will be distributed Tuesday, June 15. (It will be due by the following Tuesday.) I will also collect, on Tuesday the 15th , the fully developed idea you have for your written report concerning some comparative issue dealing with women and mass media or journalism. You can compare two individuals of similar background or era or the development of different media or how women are portrayed in different eras-each idea should be worked out with me and your progress will be discussed next week during our meetings. |
| Week six: Issues and Isms | More images of women in movies and in other mass media, with particular emphasis on the role of advertising. Individual appointments about comparison papers on Mondays and Tuesday. We will have individual appointments rather than class Monday. Short oral reports Tuesday and Thursday about your comparison projects. We will wrap up our discussions of women's roles in mass media and review the questions given on the take-home final. |
| Online Sources for Research and Exploration | |
|---|---|
| Columbia Journalism Review | Published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, this site contains an archive of some past material as well as resources and more. |
| The Constitution Community Home Page | "The Constitution Community is a partnership between classroom teachers and education specialists from the National Archives and Records Administration. We are developing lessons and activities that address constitutional issues, correlate to national academic standards, and encourage the analysis of primary source documents. The lessons that have been developed are arranged according to historical era." Though this site is meant to be used primarily by teachers and students in a classroom setting, the links to many primary historical documents are worth checking into. |
| William P. Gottlieb Collection | "The William P. Gottlieb Collection, comprised of over sixteen hundred photographs of celebrated jazz artists, documents the jazz scene in New York City and Washington, D.C. from 1938 to 1948. An ardent jazz fan, Mr. Gottlieb began working for The Washington Post after college and convinced his editor to let him write a weekly jazz column -- perhaps the first in a major newspaper -- in addition to his assigned duties." |
| Documenting the American South | ""The Southern Homefront, 1861-1865," documents Southern life during the Civil War, especially the unsuccessful attempt to create a viable nation state as evidenced in both private and public life. "Homefront" will include approximately four hundred digitized and encoded contemporary printed works and manuscripts, accompanied by ca. 1,000 images of currency, manuscript letters, maps, broadsides, title pages, illustrations, and photographs." |
| The Society of Professional Journalists' Electronic Journalist | Find one version of a code of journalistic ethics, resources, and more on this site. |
| The Media History Project | This searchable site has a wealth of links to other resources. |