COMM 421/621: History of the Mass Media

Final exam review

(Fall 2010.) Final exam will cover text chapters 1-10, 14, 21 and 22, all lectures, in-class exercises, films and readings. Topics from class lectures will include Early photography, public relations, advertising, plagiarism, writing a historical research paper, frontier press, Civil War, Penny Press, Party Press, African-American press, revolutionary press, colonial press, and press beginnings.

Questions based on exam material. Note: These are not (usually) the actual test questions, and exam questions may cover issues beyond these questions. All material above needs to be studied. Two or three questions will be repeated from the midterm exam.

1. Why is Benjamin Franklin important to early American press history?

2. Why is John Peter Zenger important to early American press history?

3. How did the Stamp Act affect newspapers?

4. What Revolutionary faction did editor Samuel Adams join?

5. What is John Dickinson known for?

6. The establishment of the Penny Press represented what big change in American journalism?

7. Why were postmasters important to early colonial press history?

8. Why was truth historically not considered a defense in seditious libel?

9. Why was frontier journalism important to western settlement?

10. Name two New York publishers famous for Yellow Journalism.

11. Name three nineteenth-century technical innovations that made modern news coverage possible.

12. Who was Mathew Brady?

13. Who was John E. Powers?

14. What was the Boston News-Letter?

15. Where did many colonial people go to read the news?

16. What is the wet-plate method?

17. Who is credited with inventing photography?

18. Who was William Lloyd Garrison?

19. Who is credited with inventing modern public relations?

20. Heavy political and ideological debate is associated with press of which era?

21. Who invented roll film?

22. Who published the first African-American newspaper?

23. How did Confederate journalists differ from the Associated Press?

24. Famous publisher of New York Tribune?

25. What was the contentious issue between James Franklin and Cotton Mather?

26. Who is credited with inventing moveable type?

27. Early writing can be traced to which ancient cultures?