Covering urban vice: the New York Times, "white slavery," and the construction of journalistic knowledge |
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| Authors: | Gretchen Soderlund |
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| Institution: | Communication and Society at the University of Chicago |
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| Abstract: | Communication scholars have analyzed how such pivotal historical and political events as war, assassination, and the rise and fall of nations and political regimes have functioned to shape and shore up the legitimacy of particular news institutions. This paper explores the role played by an early twentieth-century sex-related social and moral panic over “white slavery” in transforming news practices. Beginning in 1907, stories proliferated in the U.S. mass media of White women kidnapped and sold into prostitution organized bands of immigrants, often alleged to be conspiring with top city officials. diachronic textual analysis of New York Times coverage of a 1910 white slavery investigation finds that reporters initially drew from a stock of sentimental narratives describe the investigation's findings. However, as the investigation grew increasingly problematic, the Times developed a detached orientation toward its object, similar to that demanded of professional journalists today. I examine how the Times engaged paradigm repair and significant historical revision to account for and defend its earlier articles on this controversial phenomenon. |
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