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Self-Regulation through Distribution: Censorship and the Comic Book Industry in 1954

In 1954, comic books faced a public controversy over allegedly immoral content and simultaneously suffered a sharp decline in sales. The major publishers responded to both of these problems with the implementation of a code of censorship that enabled and justified aggressive self-regulation. Although most accounts of censorship focus on texts and cultural contexts, this article shows the extent to which the regulation of mass media necessarily involves vast and powerful infrastructures of enforcement. In particular, it highlights the critical role that distribution played by organizing the industry’s basic infrastructure and by functioning as a central mechanism of self-regulation.