In this study, T. Gregory Garvey illustrates how activists and reformers claimed the instruments of mass media to create a freestanding culture of reform that enabled voices disfranchised by church or state to speak as equals in public debates over the nation s values. Competition among antebellum reformers in religion, women s rights, and antislavery institutionalized a structure of ideological debate that continues to define popular reform movements.
The foundations of the culture of reform lie, according to Garvey, in the reconstruction of publicity that coincided with the...
In this study, T. Gregory Garvey illustrates how activists and reformers claimed the instruments of mass media to create a freestanding culture of ...