The topic that probably comes most readily to mind when we think of “local media” is local news. So, we’ll start here, by considering the legacies of local print news media in Philadelphia — from generalist major papers to the Black press, from foreign-language venues to neighborhood-specific publications to alternative weeklies — and the value of supporting a wide variety of venues and cultivating a heterogeneous information ecology. We’ll talk about other news media formats later on. Today, we’ll visit the Free Library to explore their historical newspapers collection, and while we’re there, let’s think about how a public library can serve as both a repository and creator of local media.
Field Trip: Parkway Central Library, 1901 Vine Street.
We’ll gather in the lobby at 2:15pm, meet with Nina Coffin, Library Supervisor of the Newspapers & Microfilm Center until ~3:30, then gather in Room 131/132 of the Heim Center to debrief until ~4:15pm.
To Do / Read for Today [It looks long, but it’s mostly short-ish articles and skimmable collections!]
- If you haven’t done so already, please make sure to choose a date for your Reading Response!
- Let’s start by considering Philadelphia’s publishing and periodical history. Read James J. Wyatt, “Printing and Publishing” (2013) and “Suburban Newspapers” (2017) in The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia [~15min each].
- What Philly news sources are available today? Please skim through this Arena collection of Philly Newspapers + Magazines. If I’m missing some of your favorites, please let me know! [~10min].
- Are.na is a visually-oriented collection management platform I frequently use in my classes to share assemblages of examples that I encourage students to skim, but which I don’t expect you to read closely 😉These collections are meant primarily to give you a sense of the breadth of resources available. I create these channels for a few reasons: so I needn’t clutter the syllabus with long lists; because the visual thumbnails crystallize the focus of each entry and offer a graphic overview of the collection as a whole; and because we can then share these resources with a broader community beyond our class.
- Skim through the holdings of the Free Library’s Newspapers and Microfilm Center (scroll half-way down the page, below “Events”) [~15min].
- You might also want to review PennLibraries’ “Philadelphia Studies: Historical Newspapers” guide to see what materials are available on campus, through Penn’s digital resources, and across the region.
- What’s the value of having newspapers created by and for specific communities? Please read Jake Blumgart, “Blighted: How the Inquirer Covered the Clearing of West Philadelphia’s Black Bottom,” The Philadelphia Inquirer (December 8, 2022) [~5min] and Irv Randolph, “Why the Black Press Still Matters,” The Philadelphia Tribune (November 3, 2020) [~15min].
And while we’re at the public library, let’s think about what roles it does — and could — play in our local media ecosystem:
- Shannon Mattern, “Public Knowledge,” in A City Is Not a Computer (Princeton University Press, 2021): 73-105 [~30min; you can access the e-book through Penn Libraries!].
Supplemental Resources:
- Charles Peter Banner-Haley, “The Philadelphia Tribune and the Persistence of Black Republicanism During the Great Depression,” Pennsylvania History 65:2 (1998): 190-2.
- Made in Philly, “Independent Media,” Grid Philly (September 2017).
- Shannon Mattern, “Homegrown Tech, Local Knowledge: How Libraries Support, Supplement, and Subvert Smartness,” Keynote Address, “The Smartness of Everything” Symposium, University of Ottawa (March 11, 2022) [video: 4:05 > 1:02:05].
- Shannon Mattern, “Steel and Ink: The Printed City” in Code + Clay, Data + Dirt: 5000 Years of Urban Media (University of Minnesota Press, 2017).
- Victor Pickard, “Another Media System Is Possible: Ripping Open the Overton Window, from Platforms to Public Broadcasting,” Javnost – The Public 30:2 (2023).
- Victor Pickard, “The Rise of Public Media Centers,” NiemanLab Predictions for Journalism 2022 (December 2021).