Periodicals and the Commercialization of Information in the Early Modern Era
Résumé
The invention and spread of periodicals devoted to timely reports on commerce, politics, science, and culture transformed the information landscape during the early modern period. Beginning in the sixteenth century, merchants could turn to weekly price currents for updates on trade while a restricted political elite could subscribe to handwritten newsletters recounting the latest diplomatic scuffles and court gossip from around Europe. During the seventeenth century, the expansion of postal networks underpinned the creation of the first printed newspapers followed by the first learned journals and literary reviews. As publications issued at regular intervals, periodicals had a special relationship to time (especially when compared to separate publications such as books or pamphlets), encouraging new cultural expectations and new modes of information exchange. Periodicals worked in tandem with the post: publishers relied heavily on correspondence from readers and used the post to distribute their product to customers. By the late eighteenth century, newspapers and journals were often praised for enabling information to spread cheaply and quickly, but access to information varied tremendously. In addition, the commercialization of timely information, whether in the form of manuscript newsletters or printed newspapers, raised questions of authenticity, trustworthiness, and censorship that remain with us today.
Domaines
Histoire
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