“A MIRROR OF THE TIMES”

Abstract

This is a cultural history of how the mirror was invoked as a metaphor for newspapers and journalism during parts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the United States. This study examines how journalists’ own discourse invoked the mirror as a metaphor and how this discourse related to the broader cultural understanding about the nature of mirrors. Three main meanings emerged—the mirror as means for self-reflection and moral judgment, the mirror as reliable reflection of events, and the mirror as reflection of the nature of a newspaper's readership or market.

Keywords:

• history
• metaphor
• mirror
• objectivity
• occupational norm