Title: Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics
Abstract:Nicole Hemmer's Messengers of the Right documents the tenacious battle by conservative newsmen and opinion makers to topple the dominance of liberal journalists in the war for influence in American po...Nicole Hemmer's Messengers of the Right documents the tenacious battle by conservative newsmen and opinion makers to topple the dominance of liberal journalists in the war for influence in American politics. Starting in the 1940s, broadcasters and writers not only worked in concert to develop a respectable and vibrant conservative press but they also played a significant role in making the American Right a dominant force in national politics by 1980. Hemmer argues that “media activists,” as she calls them, wielded political influence by reconciling the interests of ideological purists with those of grassroots populists. Hemmer's book is structured in four parts that follow her “messengers” from their position as media outsiders during the liberal New Deal and postwar eras to the decades of abundance after 1980, when the consolidation of the conservative news industry made talk radio and Fox News into powerful political institutions. Room 2233 of the Lincoln Building in New York was the initial meeting spot in 1953 of “some of the brightest lights of the conservative movement,” who observed that the American right needed a “counterintelligence unit,” in the words of the publisher Henry Regnery, to combat the dominance of liberals in the press, higher education, and government (p. 28). That meeting turned what had been a scattered group of conservative periodicals into a more directed, zealous, and cooperative operation.Read More
Publication Year: 2017
Publication Date: 2017-08-09
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 97
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot