James L. Baughman

James L. Baughman (January 10, 1952 - March 26, 2016) was an American mass communication historian, and the Fetzer-Bascom Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Early life and education

James L. Baughman was born in Warren, Ohio on January 10, 1952, the son of Lewis E. and Ann B. Baughman. Baughman grew up in Warren and attended the Warren City Schools.

Baughman received his BA in history from Harvard University in 1974. He attended graduate school at Columbia University, where he obtained his M.A., M.Phil and Ph.D. degrees, all in history.

Academic career

James Baughman taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1979 until 2016. He served as Director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication from 2003 to 2009. He looked the part of a professor, always wearing a jacket and tie to class. As he put it:

"Indeed, the effects [of television] that can be demonstrated are institutional, not social. Some of TV's rivals adjusted quickly to the challenge of the home screen; others showed what in retrospect appears to have been an almost self-destructive indifference. But nearly all came to adopt a common anti-TV strategy. Recognizing television's capture of the mass audience, most began cultivating the subgroup, segments of the audience denoted by such factors as class, education or age."

Reviewing the book in the April 30, 2007 issue of The New Yorker, Nicholas Lemann observed: "As the television audience grew larger and took in people from small towns and the middle of the country, it became obvious that Americans wanted predictable, familiar entertainment, featuring, as Baughman astutely observes, stock situations and stars who had unusually expressive faces that lent themselves to cartoonish mugging shown in closeup. The results were often terrific, but never uplifting."

But Baughman harbored no pretensions of cultural superiority. As he noted in the introduction to Same Time, Same Station, "I will confess to consuming much more ESPN than C-SPAN."

In addition to his academic career, Baughman served as a member of the Wisconsin Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights from 1985 to 1992. He was survived by his wife and best friend, Michele "Mickey" Michuda.

Selected publications Television's Guardians: The FCC and the Politics of Programming, 1958-1967. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985. Henry R. Luce and the Rise of the American News Media. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1987. The Republic of Mass Culture: Journalism, Filmmaking, and Broadcasting in America since 1941. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. Same Time, Same Station: Creating American Television, 1948-1961. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007.