The News Media: A Documentary History
Vision Press, 2012. The News Media provides a history of media that combines extensive primary documents with narrative because one of the best ways to understand history is to read the records that people left who participated in that history. Narrative surrounds the news articles, editorials, commentaries, biographies, and images that are contained in the book to provide a "feel" for what journalism was like in the past.

An Introduction to Visual Theory and Practice in the Digital Age
Peter Lang, 2011. An Introduction to Visual Theory and Practice in the Digital Age is designed to prepare students for becoming producers of sophisticated digital media. It combines elements of visual theory and design with the practice of creating interactive media content. The book provides a framework for working in the digital world through the legal, ethical, and historical aspects of visual theory and design and combines those concepts with visual design principles and proper composition of still images, video, and sound.

The Media's Role in Defining the Nation: The Active Voice
Peter Lang, 2010. The Media's Role in Defining the Nation looks at the way media have been used to shape, define and direct the nation's agenda from before colonization into the twenty-first century. It explores how the active voice of citizen-journalists and trained media professionals has turned to media to direct the moral compass of the people and to set the agenda for a nation, and discusses how changes in technology have altered the way in which participatory journalism is practiced.

The Idea of a Free Press: The Enlightenment and Its Unruly Legacy
Northwestern University Press, 2006. Spanning nearly four centuries in Britain and America, this book reveals how the tension between government control and the right to debate public affairs openly ultimately led to the idea of a free press; in doing so, The Idea of a Free Press documents an intellectual development of unparalleled relevance and importance to the history of journalism. Veteran journalist Daniel Shorr wrote the introduction to this book.

Greenwood Library of American War Reporting
Greenwood Press, 2005. An eight-volume set that includes all of a America's military encounters from the French and Indian War to the War in Iraq, the Greenwood Library of American War Reporting contains more than 4,000 pages from 15 authors. Copeland wrote the volume on the French and Indian War and co-wrote the volume on the War of 1812. The Greenwood Library of American War Reporting presents a unique and unfiltered portrait of American History from colonial days to the present through annotated primary documents of journalists and reporters writing as events occurred.

The Antebellum Era
Greenwood Press, 2003. Part of the seven-volume Debating Historical Issues in the Media of the Time, which was based on Copeland's 2000 book, Debating the Issues in Colonial Newspapers, and of which he served as series editor, The Antebellum Era takes the major issues that the United States faced from 1820 until the Civil War to reveal how the debates in newspapers guided and formulated the direction of the nation. American Journalsim said that The Antebellum Era is "an exciting and important book based on the Miltonian notion of debate within the marketplace of ideas . . . [a] significant and deeply engaging book that will give both students and scholars a feel of how some of the era's problems were discussed and debated."

Debating the Issues in Colonial Newspapers
Greenwood Press, 2000. Debating the Issues in Colonial Newspapers takes the pivotal issues of the eighteenth century that helped turn America from a series of British colonies into an independent nation and shows how the growing press of the period allowed people to debate and discuss those issues in the public sphere. Booklist said Debating the Issues in Colonial Newspapers was an excellent source for studying numerous topics about colonial America.

Mass  Communication in the Global Age
Vision Press, 2004, 2007. Mass Communication in the Global Age is textbook aimed at introductory communication courses. Using experts in more than twenty different areas of media, the book offers a wide-ranging study of media. Anthony Hatcher, an associate professor at Elon, co-edited the book.

Colonial American Newspapers: Character and Content
University of Delaware Press, 1997. A finalist for Delaware's 18th-century manuscript prize, Colonial American Newspapers explores the content of America's newspapers prior to independence to understand what were the subjects in which colonials were interested beyond the political content of the papers. It explores the religious and social content of the press. Drawn from the contents of seventy-four hundred newspapers, the book reveals that the first generation of American papers focused on more than European news and governmental decrees and actions.

The Function of Newspapers in Society: A Global Perpsective
Praeger Press, 2003. The Function of Newspapers explores the role of newspapers in modern societies by revealing how news has worked from a historical perspective. Looking at the way newspapers have been used through space and time around the globe, The Function of Newspapers  suggests that newspapers or the artifacts that we call newspapers are of such core value to a successful society that a timely and easily accessible news product will succeed despite changes in reading habits and technology.With Shannon Martin of Indiana University.

Benjamin Keach and the Development of Baptist Traditions in 17th-Century England
Mellen, 2001. Traces a major group of English religious dissenters by studying the life and controversies surrounding one of the group’s principal figures. Keach helped establish many of the theological positions of Baptists. His greatest accomplishment was the reintroduction of congregational hymn singing among English Protestants. This look at Baptists and dissenters of 17th century England is based in Keach’s thirty-five books and pamphlets as well as the writings of those who opposed him.