Reading the Newspaper: Strategies and Politics of Reader Response, Chicago, 1912–1917

Abstract

This article is about reader response to journalism during an important transitional period in the history of the American newspaper. It draws on a manuscript collection of letters sent by readers to James Keeley, editor of the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Herald in the early 20th century. It explores the strategies that readers used to make sense of what they read. The article's main argument is that reader response was often not idiosyncratic, but rather it was linked to interpretive communities, and these communities were influenced by political organizations. In other words, readers constructed their own meanings as they read, but this creative process was often guided by organized cultural and political power. Then as now, interest groups taught readers how to read their newspapers.

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