How did News circulate in
the C17th?
Introduction
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Different types
Circumstance
Political influence of and on newspapers
The Leisure class, introduction and target audience
Commercialization
Role of women
Public Sphere
Types of news in circulation
• Newspapers, pamphlets, discussions in coffee houses, taverns, personal
communication, manuscripts, preaching, playing cards, plays, prints and
woodcuts, ballads, libels, petitions.
• Public spaces – coffee houses, taverns and salons.
• Occupations – journalists, news-mongers and news-readers
• Effects
Effect of circumstance
• Censorship, lapse in licensing acts
C17th.
• Periods of crisis – Civil war, Thirty
Years war
• Changing relevance of public opinion
• Periodicals – High censorship due to
repeated publication
Examples of Newspapers in circulation
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The post Boy
The Flying Post
The Postman
Oxford Gazette
The Spectator
Political influence
• Ian Atherton, ‘liberal democracies in embryonic form, defending freedoms
and pushing back the dark frontier against ignorance and tyranny.’
• Biased approach?
• News circulation became a fight for political liberty against Stuart tyranny
• Most pressing influence?
Leisure class
• Increased interest in the idea of a new rational intellect, following the
scientific revolution and increasing polarisation of political ideas.
• Popularity – idea of fashion
• Accumulation of a new target audience
• Introduction of the ‘Leisure class’ – economic shifts, privatisation of
industry and the shifting of the private sphere.
Commercialization
• Manipulation of the target audience
• Serving the common interest – was political influence the most pressing
factor?
• Oxford gazette – ‘Vapid Government organ’
• Nonetheless still influenced further circulation.
Involvement of women
• Economic change and privatisation of market
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brought about intimate sphere
Women’s domestic role and gossip culture.
Increasing literacy rates, discussion and
development of communication.
Spectator- ‘A more elevated Life and
Conversation, that move in an exalted Sphere
of Knowledge and Virtue’
Book clubs, subscription libraries, diary
keeping, letters, domestic novels etc.
Public Sphere
• Jurgen Habernas – ‘a discursive space in which individuals and groups
associate to discuss matters of mutual interest and, where possible, to reach a
common judgment about them’
• COFFEE HOUSES – huge importance.
• Formation of the debate – was there a ‘public opinion’ when literacy rates
were limited to certain classes? Was there one public sphere or many
dependent on varied interests? How did this effect circulation?
• Was the public sphere a cause of news circulation or an effect from it?
Question
• Atherton mentioned how historians based their perspective on news
circulation on their opinions of current media. In reference to this, how does
the circulation of news in Stuart England reflect modern media today?