x, 326 pages : 24 cm

"This book offers a fresh perspective on the history of newspapers in the United States. Although most scholars think the newspaper works through its content, this history looks deeper into form: ways of writing; systems of organization; and genres of presentation, including typography, space, and pictures. It explores both how we see newspapers and how newspapers imagine us - as citizens, voters, consumers, and spectators."--Jacket

Includes bibliographical references (pages 311-317) and index

The form of news: style, production, and social meaning -- Part I. Before modernism: symbols of citizens. The founding forms: politics and the work of newspapers, 1750-1850 ; Commercialization: the newspaper and the market revolution, 1780s-1880s -- Part II: The role of pictures: playful commerce. Civic picturing: the regime of illustrated news, 1856-1901 ; The president is dead: pictures and journalistic values, 1881-1963 -- Part III: The rise of modernism: conveyor of facts. The front page: measuring modernisms and its phases, 1885-1985 ; Visual mapping: modern design and cultural authority, 1920-1940 -- Part IV: After modernism: icon of isolation. Beyond modernism: Americanization and its consequences, 1910-2000 ; Spectators and their spectacles: forms of knowledge, forms of power

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