How nice, that Andie Tucher would pick up right where Mr. Gross left off in his introduction. Gross ends his intro by pointing to the ironies of the statement "the more we knew about each other, the better we shall like one another." And without missing a beat, Tucher begins her chapter with the belief that "public discord, dispute, and division" are the fruits of a cohesive readership.
What struck me about this short chapter was this idea that the hopes and intentions of the Early Republic print culture did not at all align with the reality of the print culture. As Tucher notes, Americans "seemed" all too thrilled with the press as they "gathered in taverns and read together" and "treasured each issue as a key to a wider world and a solvent of their isolation." Like Gross stated in his introduction, and like Madison had hoped, the press was something that was supposed to unite the country.
This "hope" that the press would "unify a diverse and scattered people", like many other things, would eventually fall victim to a lack of money. Tucher constantly reminds us that the early newspapers and magazines were constantly fighting for their survival, and when times were tough, they usually turned to a "patron or a party with a particular argument to advance."
Reading these 20 pages of Tucher makes me think that just about every decision that was made with regard to print culture had to with money or politics: Country presses turned to political funding because they went broke; early magazines survived because of publishers' willingness to sell out to the more popular British literatures; politicians bribed and swayed newspapers to get votes; the penny presses made up false investigations to sway the opinion of middle-class readers. Weren't there any wholesome writers out there?
This quote about Gordon Bennet's coverage of the prostitute murder pretty much says it all:
"His paper's chief purpose was not to exhort a group to accomplish something, but to persuade a public to buy something. And that required a stance less of passion and commitment (and sometimes manipulativeness) than of validation and consensus (and sometimes manipulativeness)" (emphasis added).
Needless to say, this isn't the most uplifting or patriotic of the readings we've had this semester. What has happened to the good-natured, American Exceptionalism that Starr had me believing in? We've quite literally gone from the joys of reading, to journalistic manipulation of readers by people like Gordon Bennet. Either the American print culture took a horrible turn for the worse somewhere between Starr and Tucher, or we're seeing a great example of the ways in which history can be represented by two very different writers...I would have to side with the latter.
PS…I don't know if this picture is related (it may be), but I found it amusing enough to share with you all.
What struck me about this short chapter was this idea that the hopes and intentions of the Early Republic print culture did not at all align with the reality of the print culture. As Tucher notes, Americans "seemed" all too thrilled with the press as they "gathered in taverns and read together" and "treasured each issue as a key to a wider world and a solvent of their isolation." Like Gross stated in his introduction, and like Madison had hoped, the press was something that was supposed to unite the country.
This "hope" that the press would "unify a diverse and scattered people", like many other things, would eventually fall victim to a lack of money. Tucher constantly reminds us that the early newspapers and magazines were constantly fighting for their survival, and when times were tough, they usually turned to a "patron or a party with a particular argument to advance."
Reading these 20 pages of Tucher makes me think that just about every decision that was made with regard to print culture had to with money or politics: Country presses turned to political funding because they went broke; early magazines survived because of publishers' willingness to sell out to the more popular British literatures; politicians bribed and swayed newspapers to get votes; the penny presses made up false investigations to sway the opinion of middle-class readers. Weren't there any wholesome writers out there?
This quote about Gordon Bennet's coverage of the prostitute murder pretty much says it all:
"His paper's chief purpose was not to exhort a group to accomplish something, but to persuade a public to buy something. And that required a stance less of passion and commitment (and sometimes manipulativeness) than of validation and consensus (and sometimes manipulativeness)" (emphasis added).
Needless to say, this isn't the most uplifting or patriotic of the readings we've had this semester. What has happened to the good-natured, American Exceptionalism that Starr had me believing in? We've quite literally gone from the joys of reading, to journalistic manipulation of readers by people like Gordon Bennet. Either the American print culture took a horrible turn for the worse somewhere between Starr and Tucher, or we're seeing a great example of the ways in which history can be represented by two very different writers...I would have to side with the latter.
PS…I don't know if this picture is related (it may be), but I found it amusing enough to share with you all.
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