This case study focuses on the use of visual elements ? and the criticism
over such use ? in 1920s newspapers in New York, applying Jay David
Bolter?s concept of ?denial of ekphrasis?. The pioneering Jazz Age papers,
acting as early ?multimedia screens?, used photographic elements to
communicate information in novel ways, contributing to the undermining of
the analytical power of the written word. Elite criticism of these papers
evinces nothing more than a class-based contempt for popular cultural
forms, while examination of the contemporary New York Times shows that,
by the mid-1920s, that paper was already paralleling many of the visual and
content-based choices selected by its jazz journalism counterparts. Even
so, this study finds that, in line with Bolter?s theories, the underlying
traditions of the press were not fundamentally altered by technological
developments and the spread of the visual form. |