Analytical

Directions: Less than 10% AI Detection on Turnitin Report!!! NO plagiarism!

Create a 5 page analytical essay on Kevin Merriman’s (2025) article, “Journalism and Libraries: History In The Making .” (See the article below)

In your essay, analyze the article’s rhetorical situation by examining its central argument, use of evidence, and the persuasive strategies Merriman employs to support his purpose and reach his intended audience. Critically assess strengths, weaknesses, and any underlying assumptions.

Provide an explanation within your essay of how the article influenced or challenged your perspective.

Support your analysis with specific examples from the text and, if relevant, other sources in APA format.

Submit a Word Document containing your assignment and the following APA requirements:

· 5 page paper

· APA Requirements

· 1” inch margins

· Times New Roman 12 pt font

· Double-Spaced

· Title Page

· Reference Page and in-text citations

Read the article here:

“Journalism and Libraries: History In The Making.” By Kevin Marriman.

As an undergraduate, I had a vague understanding that newspapers, as primary sources, were solid tions for of history and society. When using the news articles as premises to build a thesis, they need not be challenged, nor justified, and were used as blocks of knowledge to assemble in support of an analysis. Later, I came to understand that news is reported by a person with a perspective in a publication with an ideological objective and my approach changed. Rather than building arguments with news articles, tools such as critical analysis uses corroborating evidence and interrogative theories to turn news itself into the object of study. Newspapers are essential for this type of work in nearly the opposite way to what they were intended. Now,

as a librarian, I continue to collect newspapers as an imprecise first draft of history for interrogation and analysis, not so much as an account of what happened. By fixing a moment of time and place in a cultural artifact, these imprecise and highly constructed snapshots made of articles, reports, images, editorials, and advertisements collectively contain more information than is evident at first glance, more than the words themselves and even more than the intentions of the reporters. In reflecting on the relationship between librarianship and journalism, I find myself thinking more about common threads and distinctions between our work in furthering the development of human knowledge.

The point I hope to make in this article is that librarians are here to document the present so that the future can make sense of it all. However, we still have to do that work within our value system. While we do not embrace censorship or propaganda per se, we do have a value system and, therefore an agenda.

By framing journalism as creating and distributing imperfect and coded primary source material and libraries as selectors and distributors of primary and secondary material for academics and other readers, we can examine these discrete but entangled systems within the larger universe of knowledge generation, fixation, and distribution. Such a consideration of the interplay of libraries and news is timely as both are addressed regularly in contemporary academic and public spheres. We would be remiss not to add contemporary social media, which includes a curious new subsystem of citizen journalism, leveraging concepts such citizen-reporters and infotainment, but which can circumnavigate the mediated distribution of library systems, with decisions about collation and presentation subject to obscure algorithms.

Documentation, Selection, and Promotion

Libraries in the U.S. have a cultural framework that roughly aligns, or at least intersects, with journalism regarding cultural ideology and function: espoused professional ideologies of presenting information and opinions so that people can take informed actions in a participatory democracy. While the concept of a liberal or conservative news source is established in our culture and even leveraged through branding of news sources, broadly speaking, the idea of a liberal or conservative library is not. One does not generally hear that an individual prefers a particular library because of their conservative or liberal collections, services, and programs. Conversely, one well might hear of a preference for a conservative news source. If we consider librarians and journalists as two agents in a larger system to document, collect, and preserve the human experience, this seems a bit inconsistent.

I imagine the espoused values of the two professions draw practitioners from related ideological perspectives that embrace knowledge and celebrate broad distribution of information. Journalists, librarians, and other information professionals each have professional codes of ethics. However, there are library critics who contend that libraries operate under an "agenda" to affect social and political outcomes because of the information they select, present, and protect. In this sense the accusation is that that libraries conceptually operate as a disaggregated "liberal" institution and thus efforts are afoot to make them more "conservative." The prevalence of these efforts in the U.S. today give strong evidence that the choices libraries make have significant impact on society. They would not be targeted if their work in evaluating, acquiring, and providing information to broad audiences was not affecting the people they serve.

The subtleties of library "neutrality," or lack thereof, are consistently subject to thoughtful examination and re-examination among library professionals. In 2022, Rick Anderson wrote, "this isn't a technical semantic point, because in some ways neutrality in the library is clearly a very bad idea-and yet in some important ways, it's absolutely essential." That blog post led to a follow up two years later, in 2024, with a blog post that concluded with more subtlety and complexity: "it would be more accurate to say that 'the library sometimes and in some contexts must not be neutral, and in others absolutely must be neutral -and sometimes, it's hard to say what we mean by 'neutral' and sometimes it's hard to say whether 'neutrality' is the right or the wrong stance."

Arguably, historically, even in the U.S., having "an agenda" has been common for libraries. Historically, as gatekeepers, libraries worked to hinder access to information that may have influenced their readers negatively, while promoting other content. Further, even today there are libraries serving conservative communities, and that may influence their selection decisions. There are libraries in conservative organizations, including universities, and that may affect the content and programming. There are even conservative librarians who may advocate for or act from that perspective. However, especially in contrast to news and social media, libraries emphasize presenting multiple perspectives and demonstrate a certain "fairness" to present multiple perspectives and philosophies, a testament to our actual agenda of supporting intellectual freedom. We do have an agenda, just not the ones of which we are often accused.

Conflict, Consensus, and Analysis

Librarianship is full of conflicting interests and outside influences and, as librarians are living people and librarianship a social construct, these concepts constantly evolve within a complex landscape. Journalists are also living people selecting and presenting information, often within a parent organization, and similarly subject to social and political pressure. Hence, considering arguments, criticisms, and activities from one of these spheres in the parallel framework can be an interesting thought experiment. When reading the analysis and criticisms of journalism, consider how they might apply to a library and vice versa. When reading about the influence of a media owner or newspaper editor, for example, consider that a library director, founder, funder, or board might have similar social power by influencing the distribution of information.

Conversations about information and misinformation, their creation, content, and delivery, often present concepts that maintain a certain fluidity. And none of this is new for librarians and journalists. For example, "censorship" is a word that comes into these conversations without precision, as does "objective," "balanced," and other qualifiers for the systems and the content. Arguments rely on mutually (mis)understood interpretations rather than abstract semantic precision. There is now an extensive Wikimedia entry addressing the concept of "alternative facts," which are not facts that support an alternative interpretation of a reality so much as blatant falsehoods (aka "lies").> However, some understand the term to mean, "a different interpretation"

Further amplifying the imprecision: a white supremist making claims of censorship when making slurs at coworkers is not the same as a political prisoner claiming to be censored if their writings are confiscated, or a genocide protestor asserting the censorship of their message when their signs are taken by police. In the public forum, the precise definition of censorship is less important than a loose understanding of its connotation. And the vague emotional weight of "censorship is bad" can make a listener sympathetic to an argument even if they oppose the positions ostensibly being censored (because we have a vague concept that there are two sides to every argument and that we should consider all sides). All sides tend to agree that they themselves should not be censored and our society tends to advocate for "free speech" (again, With imprecise and inconsistent understanding of this ideological concept). Hence, one might argue that expressing their opinion is free speech and interference thereof is censorship and later find, in a court of law, that it was, rather, defamatory speech.

Selection, Non-Selection, and Deselection

In library school and in my professional life, I was taught that selection decisions were decidedly not censorship, and this maxim consistently rises to satisfy the litmus tests of common sense and professional discernment, which also are arguably imprecise concepts. Choosing to give preference to peer-reviewed research, reputable publishing houses, and credentialed authors is simply considered best practice, reflecting standards developed over time. We also understand that a library collection is never a random selection of all known content, but the result of analysis, evaluation, and decision. To wit, libraries at universities with an engineering focus need different material than universities focusing on agriculture. Public libraries endeavor to address the needs of their local community whether that be providing content in multiple languages, pragmatic reference material, or general entertainment. Public libraries in conservative communities may tend towards a more conservative collection.

Knowledge evolves, theories change, interpretations develop, and occasionally even perceived facts fail over time. Only libraries with relevant interests acquire material with outdated information: historical books with disproven medical theories may have academic significance but a contemporary publication supporting their legitimacy would likely be excluded from selection. Conversely, historical political philosophies now considered inhumane are still collected, taught, and examined contextually. The selection process included context and purpose more than objective valuation.

Removing material from a collection that "offends" individual patrons or communities has been the working definition of censorship for most of my career, including considering lists of inappropriate material in the selection process. A compromise for complaints against selected material is sometimes relocation: putting questionable content behind the desk or in a closed collection that cannot be browsed. Making the material harder to access, even if doing so stigmatizes the content with the framing of "may be unsuitable for some readers" is still generally considered, "providing access' and thus "not censorship." A widely invoked maxim attributed to Jo Godwin (without a known citable origin) is that "a truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone," which still does not lend itself to suggest libraries contain random collections nor focus on collecting offensive works. It is merely an acknowledgement of conflicting sensibilities across humanity that requires thoughtful representation in a balanced library collection. Note that concepts of censorship also generally consider philosophical intent: librarians understand clearly that de-accessioning because the content is outdated, superseded, or past relevancy are merely weeding the collection, not censoring thought.

Professional discretion in selecting and literal gatekeeping to provide mediated access to some content are outside the bounds of censorship. But perhaps these are not discrete activities: not selected, selected, selected with conditions, and de-selected. One might better understand how philosophies have shifted over time and circumstances if these ideas are loosely associated as of a spectrum of actively promoting, remaining neutral, obstructing acquisition, and obstructing access: intentionally not facilitating access by not selecting, providing mediated and/ or restricted access, within a selected collection, and rescinding access to content previously selected.

How to Think, Not What to Think

Considering contemporary American values (freedom of speech particularly) and libraries' very public advocacy for free thought, it may surprise some that U.S. libraries were not always so committed. As Stone observed,

In the first seventeen years of the 20th century, American librarians were beginning to debate whether or not their paternalistic censorship for the good of the public was, indeed, for the good of the public. When the United States entered the First World War, however, most of that debate was placed to the side, as many librarians approached censorship as their contribution to the war effort and their patriotic duty."

In this thesis, Stone goes on to synthesize evidence from various works that libraries closely associated "selection" as actively "gatekeeping" per a patriotic agenda by selecting books on war, the history of the country, and patriotism while hiding or removing perceived unpatriotic literature such as philosophies of socialism and pacifism, as well as representations of German thought, up to and including materials written in the German language. There were librarian voices advocating for selectors to "avoid all bias, religious, political, or economic. Have books on both sides of a question."

Curiously, censorship leading up to the 1920s was often framed as selection- "they were merely choosing quality books; the fact that their choices often neatly aligned with their moral and/or political values was purely incidental."® Temporarily removing or relocating previously selected material to limit access still was arguably not censorship, per se, if there was still access, even if it was conditional and onerous. Systems requiring the gatekeepers of information to evaluate the researcher could be seen as a perverse reversal of selection: a professional assessment of the reader rather than of the material.

Moving into the second half of the 1920s, "a new wave of censorship began to crest, mostly focused on moral or religious issues (alcohol, evolution, sexual ethics, etc.)."" Around this time international propaganda also rose as a social concern. This public awareness of propaganda from enemy countries supported more conservative librarians' advocacy of controlling the corpus on offer, but concurrently provided evidence that "that libraries ought to offer truth, the full and unblemished truth, in an effort to combat the halftruths and misrepresented truths and full-blown lies" As there was also domestic propaganda distributed through U.S. libraries, there were still continuity concerns that are even more evident from our 21% century analysis.

War-time considerations for extraordinary and temporary manipulation of public opinion had to contend with a new confounding factor, that of the dramatic and obvious use of propaganda and censorship by rising fascist governments. How could the U.S. argue moral superiority in the parallel implementation of these methodologies even working with the established premise of extenuating circumstances in times of compromised national security? Further, growing evidence suggested these tools better service dictatorships than they did democratic governments.

A milestone for critical thinking in public discourse in the U.S. was marked during this period between the World Wars with the Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA), founded in 1937, dissolved in 1942, and rooted in protecting Americans from influences of hostile foreign ideologies. The accepted explanation for the demise of this fledgling organization that "raised awareness and highlighted the need for information literacy during a time that precedes modern attempts to promote critical thinking and counter one-sided views" was that the U.S. government needed to sway public opinion in the lead up to entering the Second World War.? The organization's work was characterized as un-American and subject to ideological attacks, including accusations that some of the officers were Communists or Communist sympathizers. Its demise suggests that public awareness of the tools of propaganda as identified by the IPA was not enough to remove the power of those tools. Earlier framings painted propaganda as a neutral tool: good when used by a government on its own people, bad when used by an enemy government on a population. This framing gives immense abstract power to language and images in the hands of people and organizations that have mastered the techniques of influence. However, it also paints a population as an indistinct subject, an aggregated resource to be manipulated and controlled by its own government while deflecting the influence of foreign powers. The egos of the citizens project these influences onto their compatriots as each believes themselves to be correct in their convictions. The egos of those influencing social narratives suggest they believe they are distinctly superior to the populace, and the ethics of such manipulation inapplicable to their station.

In the 1994 article, "Propaganda and the American Public Library from the 1930s to the Eve of World War IL," Lincove writes,

In the decade before the United States entered World War IL, many Americans believed that the surge of communist and fascist propaganda in the mass media threatened capitalism. The public library community responded by engaging in a discussion in the professional literature about whether propaganda should be censored, avoided, or intentionally provided to the public as simply one of many points of view,"

Such discussions in public discourse led to significant milestones of information freedom such as the American Libraries Association's "Library's Bill of Rights." By 1939, the American Library Association had codified and adopted the first national "Libraries Bill of Rights," which provided thoughtful and decisive guidance on the roles and responsibilities of American libraries." Nevertheless, debates around intellectual freedom continued through the Second World War, including debates such as arguing the semantics of whether selection was being wielded as preemptive censorship.

Reality is a Work in Progress

It may seem that bias in reporting, especially in wartime, would be less surprising and less controversial despite an idealized concept of historical journalism is that it is a flat reporting of events without assessment or interpretation. News has always shaped public opinion with a reciprocal relationship of political influence shaping news. Contemporary news interacts and shapes reality more dramatically than ever because of the speed of generation and decentralized distribution of news articles (and brief online formats that might be considered news "fragments"). Further, it is much more commonly understood that reporting is biased. Most people know that online news changes and even online articles that give a time and date of update rarely explain what changed. Despite wide awareness of groupthink, confirmation bias, and echo chambers, the barrage of intentional messaging still has an impact.

Ongoing efforts to educate against fake news and other forms of persuasive media continue a long history of recognizing that coercive techniques exist and arguing that a viable defense comes from cognitive analysis: understanding the mechanisms of coercion Will permit one to deconstruct the message and motive. However, we know that propaganda is effective even on those who understand the mechanisms at play; perhaps not always on an individual level, but certainly with a success rate high enough to influence society at scale -influencing economies, politics, law, social mores, public behavior, and social convention. Propaganda successfully targets society because, as individuals, our defenses for recognizing inaccurate information and manipulative framing are weak and inconsistent. Further, What might be colloquially called "reverse psychology" is a simple yet effective tool: merely asserting that a truth is false introduces enough doubt for someone to consider a lie to replace it, sometimes under the guise of being fair-and-balanced or the wisdom to "consider both sides."

Obviously, not all news sources have the same agenda, and some make efforts to demonstrate an ethical commitment. 7he Guardian newspaper is working to make their online presence more transparent with tools such as highlighting the dates of their articles to avoid past reporting appearing current. Their espoused motivation is that "trust is integral in responsible journalism and we take our responsibilities incredibly seriously." For me, the word, "trust" eclipses the word "responsible," and I pause at the absence of "truth." It seems that well-intended journalism has moved past the concepts of truth and fully embraces the techniques and positioning once reserved for propaganda. Some social media influencers seem more trustworthy than conventional news sources, and they themselves may be actors paid to present themselves as amateur reporters. Integrity is always suspect. Society has embraced that all media is generated from a position of bias and thus consciously or unconsciously attempts to coerce. Journalism, social media, infotainment, fake news, authentic news, advertisement, propaganda, and even this article are all efforts to influence. If reality is a social construct that is destroyed with each moment that passes and constantly being built into a shared present, taking in these words is an attempt to affect your experience and your contribution to the world.

Throughout history, organizations have made efforts to educate individuals in ways to protect themselves from malicious influence while they and others simultaneously or subsequently exploit the same techniques. Libraries would educate against the influence of foreign propaganda while promoting domestic patriotic agendas. When we promote our values, it is education, when the enemy promotes their values, it is propaganda. Tragically, the logical disjuncture is irrelevant, and humans continue to process information through prejudicial filters such as confirmation bias. Thus, techniques as old as language itself continue to hold power through techniques grouped into concepts of censorship, propaganda, and fake news.

Further, the techniques are understood to manipulate people within a subconscious and/or emotional framework. Hence, the messages of information literacy to recognize illogical arguments, alternative facts, and fake news becomes an admonishment of "mind over matter." In some sense there is an implied subtext blaming (or excusing) the victim for not having the intellectual rigor to effectively neutralize the constant bombardment of persuasive messaging. Moreover, to actively deconstruct information that supports currently held positions and beliefs requires great effort and insight, which is why deprogramming oneself is challenging. When debates are as basic as contesting simple facts, distraction is a viable trope, and ad hominem arguments are effective rhetorical devices, putting hope in critical thinking seems wishful and naive. It is very difficult to recognize fake news that reinforces one's identity but laughably easy when it contradicts our world view.

History is written by the winners but documented by all participants: winners, losers, and bystanders. Despite history books retroactively insisting that the current situation was inevitable, noble, just, and even divinely directed, academics digging in the libraries and archives provide counter arguments of torture, genocide, and oppression. Reality is constantly created, and history constantly reimagined with the help of journalists, and also songs, stories, photos, diaries, and innumerable cultural artifacts that help decode the official record.

A quote attributed to George Santayana, "those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it," has multiple variations including, "those who study history are also doomed to repeat it" and Mark Twain's famous, "history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." According to our current understanding of history, one might argue that fascism is globally on the rise and or that empires are beginning to crumble, which sounds uncomfortable and scary but "whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should." History unfolds chaotically, loosely shaped by conflicting forces, and is concurrently documented imprecisely to give understanding and provide direction. Libraries clumsily select and preserve content from the ever-changing and ever-growing corpus of human knowledge, despite the vast majority being lost to time, so that we might analyze ourselves for our future growth. This is all good work: meaningful, impactful, and essential to the ongoing development of humanity. Humans in print-centric societies document history, collect history, learn history, and analyze history. Even then we may repeat history. And, if we are repeating history, maybe this time, even if we do not get it right, we will get it better.

Sidebar

Kevin Merriman is Director of Global Collections, Center for Research Libraries, Chicago, and can be reached at kmerriman O crl.edu.

References

References

1. Rick Anderson, "Libraries and the Contested Terrain of 'Neutrality,' The Scholarly Kitchen, March 3, 2022, https://scholarlykitchen. sspnet.org/2022/03/03/libraries-andthe-contested-terrain-of-neutrality (accessed Jan. 27, 2025).

2. Rick Anderson, "Revisiting: Libraries and the Contested Terrain of "Neutrality," The Scholarly Kitchen, Sept. 3, 2024, https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2024/09/03/ revisiting-libraries-and-the-contested-terrain-of-neutrality (accessed Jan. 27, 2025).

Wikipedia, "Alternative facts," last edited Nov. 26, 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alternative_ facts&oldid=1259679048 (accessed Jan. 27, 2025).

Nadine Stone, "Censorship and Freedom: American Libraries and the World Wars" (honor's thesis, Baylor University, 2016), 1, nadine_ stone_honorsthesis.pdf (accessed Jan. 27,2025).

Davis Erin Anderson, "Libraries and Propaganda: A Non-Exhaustive Timeline of Resistance and Cooperation," The Bytegeist Blog (blog), June 5, 2018, https:// medium.com/the-bytegeist-blog/ libraries-and-propaganda-a-non-exhaustive-timeline-of-resistanceand-cooperation-de0e56ad29b7 (accessed Jan. 27, 2025).

Stone, "Censorship and Freedom: American Libraries and the World Wars," 13.

Ibid.

David A. Lincove, "Propaganda and the American Public Library from the 1930s to the Eve of World War II," RO 33, no. 4 (1994): 510-23.

Elisabeth Fondren, "'We Are Propagandists for Democracy': The Institute for Propaganda Analysis' Pioneering Media Literacy Efforts to Fight Disinformation (1937- 1942)" American Journalism 38, no. 3 (July 3, 2021): 258-91, https:// doi.org/10.1080/08821127.2021.195 0481.

10.Lincove, "Propaganda and the American Public Library from the 1930s to the Eve of World War IL."

11. American Library Association, "Library Bill of Rights," adopted June 19, 1939, by the ALA Council; amended October 14, 1944; June 18, 1948; February 2, 1961; June 27, 1967; January 23, 1980; January 29, 2019; inclusion of "age" reaffirmed January 23, 1996, https://www.ala.org/ advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill (accessed Jan. 26, 2025).

12.Chris Moran, "Why We're Making the Age of Our Journalism Clearer at The Guardian," The Guardian, April 2, 2019, sec. Help, https:// www.theguardian.com/help/ insideguardian/2019/apr/02/ why-were-making-the-age-ofour-journalism-clearer (accessed Jan. 28,2025).

13.Max Ehrmann, "Desiderata," Wikisource, https://en.wikisource. org/wiki/Desiderata (accessed Jan. 9,2025).