Susan R. Brooker-Gross

Teaching about race, gender, class and geography through fiction

Abstract Fiction is used in geography teaching with a variety of objectives. The novel Betsey Brown was used to explore the intersection of race, class and gender in urban social geography. All members of the class read the novel while a small group researched the geographical and historical contexts of the book. Use of the novel increased awareness of race and class but was less successful with gender, although it did provide a catalyst and safe forum for the discussion of sensitive issues.

Reconsidering faculty roles and rewards in geography

Abstract In the USA there has been a reassessment of public and faculty attitudes to higher education and its practices. One concern has been the priority faculty and administrators in different disciplines attach to the roles and rewards accorded to teaching, research and public service. The Association of American Geographers (AAG) set up a task force to examine these issues with respect to geography. The proposals of that task force are presented here together with an introduction by Ron Abler, the AAGs Executive Director. These proposals have now been sent to all US geography departments for consideration. They should interest geography associations and departments in other countries, where the tension between faculty roles and rewards are issues for staff and/or public concern.

ASPECTS OF THE JOURNEY-TO-WORK WITHIN A SMALL CITY LABORSHED

A sample of the labor force of Blacksburg, Virginia, was surveyed to examine the relationship between worktrip length and household income within a small city laborshed and to ascertain the importance of commuting costs to the observed journey-to-work pattern. The results indicate that high income households are the most successful minimizers of worktrip length, in contrast to the typical metropolitan pattern. Patterns of home-work separation are linked to the availability of housing within Blacksburg and its laborshed. Households may attempt to reduce travel costs by residential relocation, fuel-efficient automobiles, and carpooling. Carpooling was more prevalent as worktrip length increased and among lower income households. Residential relocation did not reduce travel costs and the use of fuel efficient cars was not associated with either worktrip length or income.

News wire services in the nineteenth-century United States

Abstract News wire services were established in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century to gather and distribute news for local newspapers, using the new technology of the telegraph. With that early beginning in the era of electronic communication, the expansion of news wire services spans the change from a society of local communities to a more nationally integrated society. This paper assesses the importanceof changes in the mediums spatial organization which promoted national culture. The first wire services were local, ad hoc groups, organized to achieve greater efficiency in news-gathering. Formal services were first organized on a local basis, but in 1848 they began to sell news to the major urbanized portions of the United States. As the nation grew, the desire for greater efficiency conflicted with the desire for greater autonomy. Regional wire services persisted from the 1860s to the 1880s but after the 1880s, a tenuous national organization was achieved, cementing itself into a national system after the turn of the century. Efficiency in news collection was the primary reason for the increasing scale of news collecting groups. Each step toward larger spatial coverage, fed the growth of a complex interdependent urban system.

Timeliness: Interpretations from a Sample of 19th Century Newspapers.

Timeliness in news would appear to be a universally accepted value, as the blitz of modern communications renders yesterday’s stories obsolete. Yet as we look back through the electronic era in communications to a pre-telegraphic time, the value placed on timeliness is less clear. Many accounts stress the competition among newspapers in the early 1800’s to ‘scoop’ one another, using schemes to shortcut usual news paths by hiring pigeons, horse expresses and fast boats. There are indications, however, that theearly 1800’s lack of timeliness in news reporting was not merely due to slow means of transportation, but because news was not as actively or quickly pursued. In Murat Halstead‘s early days in Cincinnati, for example, he was a maverick in his drive to get the most timely news[. while a Boston editor supposedly told a reporter not to go to a nearby town to cover a speech since‘somebody will send us something about it in two or three days.’* Even Topliffs meeting of incoming ocean vessels t o get ‘fresh’ news was an innovation in 181 I . ’ The penny press of the 1830’s and after has been credited with making timeliness a consistent goal of news reporting.‘ Actual time lag between event and publication decreased with the capabilities of faster communication, but varying degrees

19th Century News Definitions and Wire-Service Usage.

rn News eludes definition. Recent studies have sought to understand its production through social interaction, interaction among newsworkers, between newsworkers and sources, between newsworkers and audiences.’ The social system in which news production is embedded, including the professionalization2 of newsworkers, defines news. Professionalization, the internalization of journalistic norms, the ability to reach consensus about newsworthiness, all depend upon acceptance of a basic notion that news is generalizable, or even uniform. News organizations d o not pride themselves on having a di[feren/ definition of news; rather, in searching for “scoops,” in monitoring competition for “must” stories, newsworkers confirm that what is news for one organization should be news for others. Historically, newspapers in the United States have always partly subscribed to such uniformity, at least to the extent that sources of news tended to be other newspapers.] The partisan press, however, permitted n e w s p a p e r v a r i a t i o n in t h e interpretation of events. With the use of news wire services, and the disappearance of the partisan press in favor of “objectivity,” standardization of news increased.