Week 2: Overheads

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The Press and Nation-building

Development communication in the Nineteenth-century U.S.

Political uncertainty, instability

Economy lacked capital, infrastructure (roads, canals, industry)

Social disconnections: Language, religion, distance

Limited communications

Communities of communication

Politically subsidized newspapers: National Intelligencer

Frontier newspapers: Oregon City Spectator, 1846

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Semi-official Political Press, 1800-1860

Central partners in developing U.S. political system (not independent observers)

Printed official documents, announcements, speeches, letters.

Advocate for policies, leaders, political parties.

Editors likely to be political leaders, campaign managers, advocates.

Privately owned: No government ministry of information. Instead, official sponsorship and patronage.

Audience: Political elites, activists, interested citizens, regional newspapers.

Example: Presidential newspapers, 1800-1860. National Intelligencer, United States Telegraph, Globe.

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First U.S. communications revolution: Printing, 1800-1830

American Bible Society

American Tract Society

Technology imports

Steam presses

Page plates (stereotyping)

Papermaking machinery

Purpose of new print technology

Bible in every home

Unintended consequences

Faster, cheaper printing available beyond political subsidies, creates opportunities for reform and entrepreneurship.

Key Question: Do new technologies of communication bring increased public access to the marketplace of ideas?

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Important concept: Communities of Communication

Ability of communications technologies to transmit ideas, linkages across time and space.

Creates virtual communities among widely separated audiences

Organize participation in politics, social networks (Government, political parties, reform groups, immigrants, churches, volunteer organizations)

Shared experience of frontier life (hardships, personal rewards)

Outreach (Other communities, potential settlers, former homes in other places, nations) Booster press.

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Create communities

a. "Newspapers also had a symbolic value. They gave a town an aura of stability and an identity. A town with a newspaper was a real town, just like the ones residents had left behind." Barbara Cloud, The Business of Newspapers on the Western Frontier.

b. Local news

2. Promote communities

a. Editors as "boosters"

b. Manifest Destiny

Examples: Oregon City Spectator, Baker City Bedrock Democrat, Heppner Gazette, Wenatchee World.

3. Organize communities around common interests -- political, religious, ethnic, local government

Spanish-language newspapers -- first 1535 in Mexico City.

Native American newspapers, starting with Cherokee Phoenix

Immigrant communities: French, German, Chinese, Jewish, Norwegian, Swedish, Italian, Czech, Polish, etc.

Religious newspapers, abolitionist newspapers, agricultural newspapers.