Summary Media History

Week 2 – From Oral Culture to Print Society

How Luther Went Viral:

 Circulation of written material in Western Europe declined dramatically after collapse
of Roman Empire  Dark Ages
 Pecia System = books divided into sections and rented out for recopying
 Martin Luther
o Aversion toward indulgences
o 95 theses questioning legitimacy catholic church at that time
o Copies began to circulate and went ‘viral’
o Start of The Reformation
 ‘Social media helps people realize that their dissatisfaction with status quo is shared
by other’
 Without printing, no Reformation vs. dat valt wel mee want bijna niemand kon
uberhaupt lezen
 New forms of media do not trigger revolution themselves, but they can make it
easier for would-be revolutionaries to coordinate their actions, synchronize opinion
and rally other their cause

The Invention of News. How the World Came to Know Itself

 First generation printers would struggle with their high supply vs low demand 
bankruptcy  Solution: Cooperation with Church or State
 Indulgences were mainstay of printing industry
o Ideal commission as work was short and no distribution issues
 The church was already using some sort of marketing in the form of fundraising
campaigns
 What saves Luther was publicity and print won Luther a wider audience
 The Reformation was Europe’s first mass-media event
 Neue Zeiting = new pamphlets filling the gap of that was left after titles dedicated to
Reformation declined; Focussing on high politics like foreign affairs

The Trade in News

 We can distinguish four types of pre-print communication networks:
o Catholic Church network
o Political authorities networks
o Business communities and trading centres
o Network of merchants etc
  Later these network effected by two developments
o States developed regular postal services
o Application of printing
 020 was gewoon centre of rapidly expanding trade in news
 Around 1640  British governments strict control of press began to weaken
o Commercially based press, independent of state power
 Many papers were read in public places  readership much higher than regulation
 Political authorities sought to exercise control over the proliferation of newspapers
by imposing special taxes  The Stamp Acts

News and Revolution:

 Politics of journalism appeared to change in the 18th century
 The American Revolution
o Rise of colonial newspapers (real ‘weapon’)
o After expiration of Licensing Act in 1695  British public had access to
unusually well-argued points of view
o “Seditious Libel” e.g. Zenger
o American newspapers expanded the freedom to critize
 The virulence of protests made Stamp Act impossible to enforce
 No taxation without representation
 The true power of pre-revolutionary press is not be be found in its ability to wound
the Birtish, but its ability to enfranchise and unify the Americans
 The French Revolution
o Periodicals controlled by government
o The absence of an aggressive, above-ground press to cover events and
channel dissent itself contributed to the Revolution
o There was a need to rely on rumour (word of mouth) for information on what
may have been the most important political event of their lives (Bastilles)
 Spoken news not so reliable, sort of News vacuum
o “Great Fear”
o No news more destabilizing than bad news
o 1789  ‘freedom to communicate thoughts and opinion’
o Ended with Napoleon

The Creation of Media:

 Commercial expansion, religious conflict and the rise of more powerful nation-states
altered the economic and political context of communications
 Conditions for public sphere:
o Creation of a new network infrastructure
o Collapse of old norms
  The effect of the parties on each other, as antagonism once again contributed to the
growth of the press
 Not much urge to reduce illiteracy: English Elite believed that educating the great
mass would unfit them for the drudgery they needed to perform and mislead them
for the expectations in life and thereby increase discontent
 Larger newspapers market  employ more staff, gather information directly instead
of authorities and there exert a stronger influence on their own

Week 3 – Rise of the Public Sphere

Press as a Mass Medium:

 Mass circulating newspapers attracted attention during wartime, as vehicles for
propaganda and means of sustaining national morale
 Increasing industrialization and urbanization, technological innovation and changes in
transportation and in education
 Emergence of a middle class
 Two changes in economic organisation crucial to growth of newspapers:
o Rise of advertising
o Newspaper and magazine chains  Press Barons and economies of scale
 Relationship of dependence:
o Manufacturers on advertising agencies to prepare attractive material
o Advertisers on newspaper press to promote products
o Newspaper proprietors on advertisers to finance and reduce prices
 Particular style of journalism was introduced to achieve mass circulation
o New approaches to presentation and layout, journalistic style and shifting
priorities in content
o “New Journalism”  Lighter in tone, headlines, shorter paragraphs, human-
interest stories and inverted pyramid
o Yellow journalism
 Press as Fourth Estate (Trias Politica)  Watchdogs
 Golden Age for correspondent: 1865 until WWI
o Rise of popular press
o Technological developments
o Lack of censorship
 Large scale control and presentation of information during WWI
o To maintain morale among home front population
o To influence opinion in neutral and enemy countries
o Stimulate nationalist sentiment
o Spread disenchantment among enemy soldiers
 Three main developments in mass press after WWII:
o Concentration of ownership (Press barons)
o Contraction in number of dailies
 o Commercial nature of newspapers was confirmed

Rise of Advertising:
 Main purpose of advertising was now to persuade buyers rather than provide
information
 Overproduction/under-consumption
 Rise of consumer culture and greater affordability
 Media dependence on advertising has threatened freedom of expression
 Critic on advertising:
o Advertising raises product prices through costs of advertising
o Works against rational consumer choice and efficient use of resources
o Creates false needs

How New American Journalism Spread to Europe:

 1880 – 1920  Great change in American Journalism  impacted European
journalism, initially GB
 Improved working conditions; pulp newsprint; new and more efficient typesetting
machines  Falling copy prices, rising circulation figures
 ‘Journalism is more than a mere reference to changes in material conditions’ 
Technology alone cannot explain changes in journalism
 Early decades of 20th century: treatment of manuscripts formalized editorial
procedures and routines almost into a production line. Three problems:
o How to rearrange and differentiate content to give each story a sense of
‘individuality’
o How to control output from journalists
o How to approach new prospective audiences (new or traditional journalism)
 Leisure and entertainment vs educate and inform
 Methods of New Journalism:
o New Layout and display typography
o Inverted pyramid
o The News Interview
o Objectivity
 European countries first criticized the vulgarity and the lack of style and seriousness of
American Newspapers
 The extent to which public opinion is allowed to influence the political decision-
making process is one of key condition for the autonomy of press

Rise of the Public Sphere:

 First half of 1800’s  British government stopped ‘taxes on knowledge’ 
Foundation for press to act as Fourth Estate
  Development of the newspapers was mainly influenced by political, industrial and
cultural circumstances
 Chartism = (Britain’s first) Political movement of working people, developed from
growing  unrest in the workplace brought about by the rapid economic, social and
industrial  changed sparked by the Industrial Revolution. 
 Newspapers were spokespersons for the emerging classes and subclasses and there
was a  distinction between two broad kinds of newspapers: 
o Respectable newspapers → Middle class voice, tax, legal 
o Radical newspapers → Working class, trade unison  
 Some feared that the extension of reading could facilitate the dissemination of ideas
and contribute to political instability and moral corruption
 The most significant political publication → Tom Paine’s Right of Man, appealing to
many  working people because of his ideas on republicanism, democracy and
individual rights. 
 Demise of radical press (mid late 1800’s): 
o The competition from respectable press was too severe. 
o Advertisers were not keen on advertising on such sensational press.
o Britain’s effort to heighten national unity and identity through certain
programs were  successful → “God, King and Country” 
o Radial press was over-reliant on ad revenue. 
Prices of production increased if radical press wanted to expand → most
could not afford  it.

Week 4 – The Audiovisual Revolution