Web-writing exercise two

COMM 260, Principles of Internet Web-Based Design
Instructor: Ross Collins

Web-writing exercise two: repurposing narrative for the web.

The article below is an introduction to a historical research article, written for an academic journal. It needs to be written as an introduction to a web-based version of the article, based on needs of a web-based audience. Re-write this introduction. Copy the text, and paste it into a word processing document (or Dreamweaver, if you can find an open launch). Consider these guidelines:

Write short headlines and subheads. Make these bf (boldface) or ital (italic), or a slightly larger size.
Break long sentences into shorter.
Break long paragraphs into shorter (about 50 words max).
Shorten slightly (original is about 800 words).
Consider using bulleted lists as a "point of entry."
Consider rewriting the "lead," that is, first sentence or paragraph. You might try the "inverted pyramid style" to get to the point more quickly.
Add links in text to topics you think the reader would want to know more about. For instance, Old West could become a link to a site about Old West topics. Perhaps U.S. Civil War, P.T. Barnum, etc. To find appropriate links, search using Google or another search engine.
Consider a font that's most readable for this kind of copy. Serif or sans serif?

Save assignment, print hand in hard copy for grading, either as Dreamweaver doc, or browser doc.

Note: do not "over-edit" a writer's style and choice of words. Change only to make it web-accessible, not to re-write it to your own preferred style.

Building a Media Celebrity: the Marquis de Morés and the Gilded Age

Media critics often judge negatively the criteria though which people turn themselves into media celebrities in free-press Western societies. A distinctive style of dress (or undress) attracts attention of celebrity-oriented media; an ability to contribute outrageous hyperbole or "sound-bites"; an ability to concoct unexpected, even wacky, projects and stunts. Wealth fascinates the mass-media audience, as does the hopeful celebrity able to embody a cultural value, whether it be beauty, athletic ability, royal connection, country charm, "exotic foreigner," or even Old West lore.

Yet variations of this popular 1990s recipe reach back far into the history of Western mass media, in fact, back to the beginning of the mass circulation press. At the beginning of the last century there was no popular press; presses couldn't print more than a few thousand at a time, telegraph news wasn't available, and literacy was too low to offer a mass readership.

But after the U.S. Civil War, advances in technology and education fed the strong growth of the mass-circulation press, which attracted an audience as influential as that of today's dominant mass media, television. With this growth came the development of the celebrity formula so familiar today.

Historic early celebrities made by the media include P.T. Barnum, the showman who succeeded using hyperbole, Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody), whose Wild West show captivated Europe and America's East, and internationally-famous actress Sarah Bernhardt.

What might happen if one person were able to wrap many of these celebrity building blocks into a single public-relations package? A mass audience might read of a well-heeled, handsome, aristocratic, foreign-born, sword- and gun-slinger whose colorful hyperbole matches his stupendous projects in America's Western frontier. Such a formula was embodied in the Marquis de Morés, North Dakota's first international media celebrity.

As a case study in the last century's styles of self-public relations, personal communication and celebrity status, Morés offers an edifying example spanning two continents. Like Barnum, he was a huckster easily drawn to hyperbole. Like Bill, his Wild West antics captured an audience both in America and in Europe. Like rich socialites, his manners and pocketbook interested all kinds of press, from The New York Times to Le Temps. Morés was an early entrepreneur who seemed to understand the use of "celebrity status" to promote himself, to make sure his endless projects were well-covered by the dominant mass media of the day.

Also like some of today's celebrities, Morés was violently controversial during his short lifetime. What is more, the controversy extended far beyond his century, through 70 years of partisan historiography. The complex and multi-faceted Morés has been used in turn to impugn a government, create a martyr for antisemitism, sustain a tourist industry, add to Old West lore, and in strongly-worded Jewish re-interpretations, create a sinister proto-Nazi ne'er-do-well.

For a general study of a more objective nature, we wait until 1972, when D. Jerome Tweton published The Marquis de Morés. Dakota Capitalist, French Nationalist. Unfortunately, this carefully-researched account, now more than two decades old, is hard to find outside North Dakota libraries. Saum's (1969) account illustrated Morés as symbol of progress for nineteenth-century America, and his later account (1972) illusrated Morés as symbol of revolt against nineteenth-century realism. No accounts have appeared since.

As we pass another fin de siécle, it may be worth while to take a fresh look at the life of this aristocratic adventurer, but this time focusing on the man as early self-publicist and media celebrity. In the work below, the author has returned to primary sources whenever possible, including Morés' own publications collected at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. Unfortunately, Morés left few primary sources for historians and, as Tweton (1972) noted, valuable sources also include biographies published by friends after his death. Of course, newspaper accounts are abundant, as Morés was a major media figure of the era. But newspaper accounts may be unreliable. Because newspapers often form the only primary source of information about Morés, however, this study limits most newspaper references to the two most reputable of the era: Le Temps in Paris and The New York Times in the United States. Morés' friend Droulers (1932) published a useful if biased biography; most of the references here to Dresden (1970) are nearly identical in Droulers' early account, and used instead for convenience of the English translation. This study also tries to use sources in French not easily accessible to American researchers. (All translations are by the author.)

Especially in French, biographical accounts of Morés between his death in 1896 and the end of World War II are highly positive in tone, even adulatory. He is the "Sahara martyr" (Thérol, 1942) or "one of the West's most colorful, if obscure, frontier figures." (Goplen, 1946). In contrast to this is critical material focusing on Morés' antisemitism. All of this was published after World War II. Byrnes (1950) called Morés "not only the first national socialist, but also the first storm trooper."