Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

5-1990

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Communication

Major Professor

Herbert H. Howard

Committee Members

Kelly Leiter, Paul Ashdown, William Coffield

Abstract

Published from February 21,1828, to May 31,1834, by the Cherokee Nation at New Echota, Georgia, the Cherokee Phoenix was the first native American newspaper. The purpose of this study was to determine what information was disseminated by the newspaper and to determine if the editorial content followed the guidelines editor Elias Boudinot printed in both the prospectus and the first issue. Data were collected on the entire universe of the editorial and advertising content of the 260 issues through content analysis. Editorial and advertising content categories were developed from references found in previous historical and qualitative studies. Although the editorial content was varied, miscellaneous articles, education articles, untranslated Cherokee articles, and removal articles each accounted for more than 10 percent of the total content. The primary types of advertisements were for other publications, legal notices and announcements, and items the newspaper printed for sale to individuals. Except for the editorial content categories of newspaper publishing, miscellaneous, and untranslated Cherokee articles, the editorial content followed the guidelines Boudinot had established. Few differences were evident in the content of the newspaper under the two editors, Boudinot and Elijah Hicks. Hicks did print a larger percentage of articles in the education and religion categories. Both editors had little content outside the content categories of newspaper publishing. miscellaneous, and untranslated Cherokee articles which did not follow the guidelines Boudinot had established. Although the original intent was to publish materials in both Cherokee and English, 83.4 percent of the editorial content and 94.9 percent of the advertising content were printed in English. The two areas of content which most directly affected the Cherokee Nation, removal and the Cherokee Nation's problems with Georgia, were discussed in only 16 percent of the total articles printed in the newspaper. Advertisements which reflected the business and community life within the Cherokee Nation were few in the 260 issues. The newspaper published little information to readers outside the Cherokee Nation concerning the manners and customs of the Cherokees and their progress in civilization, and, thus, valuable ethnological information is not available in the newspaper. Since only historical and qualitative studies of the Cherokee Phoenix existed, this content analysis provides a quantitative way to view the content of the Cherokee Phoenix. A number of statements made in earlier studies could not be substantiated with this study, but some of the qualitative statements were substantiated. These were unexpected findings of the study.

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