The Importance of Historical Perspective and Archival Methods in Political Communication Research

McGarr, Kathryn J.

doi:10.1080/10584609.2020.1716495

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 16 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…To explore Leonora Raines’ lived experiences (Archetti, 2022) as a Paris-based World War I correspondent, I analyzed primary sources, including news stories, commentaries, and unpublished archival materials located in U.S. and German archives. Mass communication scholars and political historians have argued that archival research is an important method of sourcing, evaluating, and synthesizing information to provide original and empirical findings (King, 2011; McGarr, 2020; Startt & Sloan, 2003). Military and police records about individual war reporters can yield a more complete understanding of press surveillance and official pressures on journalists (Williams, 2012).…”

Section: Methods and Primary Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Real News Arrives From Abroad”: Transnational Eyewitnessing in Leonora Raines’ War Correspondence for the New York Evening Sun (1914–1918)

Fondren

2024

Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article synthesizes results from historical newspaper analysis and archival research with standpoint epistemology to explore the dynamics of transnational eyewitnessing illustrated by Leonora Raines, a Paris-based American journalist who reported the Great War (1914-1918) for the metropolitan New York Sun. Few World War I military-press histories have explored how female reporters engaged in transnational journalism, harnessing their role as an “outsider within” to produce cross-border stories for audiences dependent on foreign news. Analysis of Raines’ 126 articles, her scrapbook, and records from U.S. and German archives reveal her interactions with foreign sources, military censors, and propaganda across France, the Western Front, and Germany.

show abstract

Section: Methods and Primary Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Real News Arrives From Abroad”: Transnational Eyewitnessing in Leonora Raines’ War Correspondence for the New York Evening Sun (1914–1918)

Fondren

2024

Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…To determine how World War I German propaganda was created, sourced, and institutionalized, I analyzed original sources and unpublished records (federal policy documents, letters, press briefings, memoirs, and other records) that discuss the inner workings, ideas, mismanagement, and frustrations of German propagandists and censors during the war years of 1914 to 1918. Mass communication scholars and political historians have argued that archival research is an important method of sourcing, evaluating, and synthesizing information to provide original and empirical findings (King, 2011;McGarr, 2020;Startt & Sloan, 2003). Moreover, some archival materials have thus far been underutilized in the scholarship on World War I German propaganda.…”

Section: Methods and Goalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fighting an Armed Doctrine: The Struggle to Modernize German Propaganda During World War I (1914–1918)

Fondren

2021

Journalism & Communication Monographs

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

During the First World War (1914–1918), all belligerent governments realized that propaganda proficiency was critical to selling their causes and stirring up support for the war. Yet German propagandists in particular struggled to master mass media, manage their messages, and build audience trust during the Great War in their goal to control domestic and foreign public opinion. Although previous scholarship has agreed that the German propaganda machine failed, little has been said about how Germany recognized these failures early on and sought to remedy them through increasingly modern propaganda strategies—even if those strategies were ultimately no match for the public’s growing distrust of official information. This monograph examines how it was that more institutions, more manpower, new publicity initiatives, copying tactics from enemies, crowdsourcing ideas, and eventually focusing on visuals and film did little to boost morale at home or improve Germany’s reputation abroad. The findings rest on a historical analysis of military dispatches, federal policy documents, letters, news stories, propaganda materials, and memoirs located in German and U.S. archives. Although many of the methods and tactics these early propagandists used would fail, others would become part of the universal toolbox governments still rely on to influence people’s views and spread information.

show abstract

“…As the very nature of political communication, the studies listed above are interdisciplinary and profited from the influence of the social sciences -the economic, political, social and psychological aspects of news processing-. However, they exhibit a common aspect, to a greater or lesser extent, a reduced historical-temporal horizon, which affects the understanding of the context (McGarr, 2020;Rojas & Valenzuela, 2019).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Honecker Affaire and the Fall of the Berlin Wall Seen From American Newspapers

Harvey-Valdés,

Soto

2023

Universum

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The present article examines the 'Honecker affaire' coverage by two American newspapers, The New York Times and The Washington Post. The episodes analyzed broke out with Erich Honecker's entrance into the Chilean Embassy in Moscow in 1991, seeking refuge to avoid German justice. Although this case represented one of the most entangled incidents in contemporary Chilean foreign relations, bogging this country down in a major diplomatic crisis with the USSR -then the Russian Federation and then Russia-and Germany, American foreign policymakers and public opinion remained indifferent. Nevertheless, after detailed scrutiny -borrowing tools from content, discourse and framing analyses within the ideological framework of news production-two conflicting political positions are reflected, especially on the GDR ex-leader and consequently on the aftermath of the Cold War. We affirm that when events are not significant or even newsworthy, newspapers' 'feet on the ground' correspondents allow their supporting ideologies to flow and run freely.

show abstract

The Importance of Historical Perspective and Archival Methods in Political Communication Research

Cited by 6 publications

References 16 publications

“Real News Arrives From Abroad”: Transnational Eyewitnessing in Leonora Raines’ War Correspondence for the New York Evening Sun (1914–1918)

“Real News Arrives From Abroad”: Transnational Eyewitnessing in Leonora Raines’ War Correspondence for the New York Evening Sun (1914–1918)

Fighting an Armed Doctrine: The Struggle to Modernize German Propaganda During World War I (1914–1918)

The Honecker Affaire and the Fall of the Berlin Wall Seen From American Newspapers

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About