Looking at London for Inspiration

Abstract

This article focuses on a broad process which took place in Europe and the United States starting in the second half of the nineteenth century: namely, the emergence of an incipient mass media culture. Scholars have tended to circumscribe this historical transformation within the contours of the nation state or, at best, to media systems theory. The following pages, in contrast, will show that the transition from the partisan press model towards a commercial and politically independent model involved a hybrid process, powered as much by the circulation of norms and practices across national borders as by local (and sometimes, quite paradoxically) by national mindsets. To reveal this hybrid character, the article adopts an entangled and empirical perspective based on three renowned newspapers from three different countries.

KEYWORDS:

• Journalism history
• entangled history
• media systems
• England
• Italy
• Spain

Notes

1. Hallin and Mancini, Comparing Media Systems; Chapman, Comparative Media History.

2. These models correspond to geographical areas sharing similar structural patterns and cultures: the ‘Liberal Model’ (Great Britain, Ireland and North America); the ‘Democratic Corporatist Model’ (Northern Continental Europe) and the ‘Polarized Pluralist Model’ (Southern Europe). More recently, the two scholars have expanded the framework to new geographies. See: Hallin and Mancini, Comparing Media Systems Beyond the Western World.

3. On this methodology, see: Werner and Zimmermann, “Beyond Comparison”; Cronqvist and Hilgert, “Entangled Media Histories.”

4. Hobbs, “The Deleterious Dominance.”

5. Castronovo, La stampa, 102.

6. Forno, Informazione e potere, 70.

7. Wiener, The Americanization; Wiener and Hampton, Anglo-American Media Interactions. One valuable exception is: Høyer and Pöttker, eds., Diffusion of the News Paradigm.

8. Espagne, Les Transferts; and Schmale, Cultural Transfer.

9. Hallin and Mancini, Comparing, 89–142.

10. Mark Hampton has referred to Hallin and Mancini’s work as an ‘effort to reject the normative equation of the Liberal model with “modernization”’. Hampton, “Media Studies,” 244–5.

11. Cronqvist and Hilgert, “Entangled Media Histories”; Broersma, Form and Style; Høyer and Pöttker, eds., Diffusion of the News Paradigm.

12. The Times, 20/05/1916, 5.

13. For an analysis of this newspaper and the family who established it, see: Dalmau, Press, Politics.

14. Hallin and Mancini, Comparing, 37.

15. There are different accounts on the history of this newspaper. The ones used here are: Woods and Bishop, The Story of the Times; and Morison, The History of The Times.

16. Fenton, “Origins of animosity.”

17. Morison, The History, vol. 1, 20–5 (esp. 24).

18. Ibid., 100–1.

19. Ibid., 109–19.

20. Ibid., 24; and Barrera, Historia, 95.

21. Chapman, Comparative Media History, 48.

22. “A nuestros lectores,” La Vanguardia (hereinafter LV), 01/01/1888, 1.

23. Resina, Barcelona’s Vocation.

24. “Las reformas de La Vanguardia,” LV, 21/02/1890, 1.

25. Umbach, “A Tale of Second Cities.”

26. LV,01/01/1888, 1. Italics added.

27. LV, 21/02/1890, 1.

28. LV, 24/10/1903, 2.

29. Bahamonde, ed., Las comunicaciones en la construcción del estado contemporáneo en España (1700–1936).

30. Archives Nationales de France, 5 AR/95, Correspondence Havas-Fabra-Madrid, 1904-1918, ‘Note sur une convention réglant les communications télégraphiques de presse entre la France et l’Espagne’.

31. Riera, “El periodismo moderno,” LV, 25/10/1893, 10.

32. Sánchez Ortiz, El Periodismo, 21.

33. Castronovo, La stampa, 107.

34. “AL PUBBLICO,” Il Corriere della Sera (hereinafter, ICS), 05/03/1876, 1.

35. The complete list, in Licata, Storia 27, n. 1.

36. Ibid., 20.

37. Gilbert and Nilsson, The A to Z, 31; Benadusi, Il “Corriere”, 27.

38. Albertini, Vita, 42–5.

39. ‘Il soggiorno di Londra mi fu per tanti versi utilissimo nel seguito della mia vita. Lí entrai in cordiali relazioni col direttore amministrativo del Times, Moberly Bell, la cui casa era frequentata dal miglior mondo politico inglese. Lí appresi ad ammirare il funzionamento di quel regime rappresentativo e ad attaccarmi ai principi costituzionali di governo.’ Albertini, Venti anni di vita politica, 1.

40. For a more detailed analysis of these points, see: Licata, Storia del Corriere, 97–115.

41. Castronovo, La stampa, 160–1.

42. “Ai lettori,” CS, 20/12/1902, 1.

43. Baldrighi, Luca Beltrami, 186.

44. Licata, Storia, 22; Castronovo, La stampa, 146.

45. Barié, Luigi Albertini, 67.

46. Thompson, Northcliffe, 140–59.

47. Høyer, “Old and New Journalism”; de la Motte and Przyblyski, Making the News.

48. Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, 201.

49. Benadusi, Il “Corriere”, 134.

50. Hallin and Mancini, Comparing, 35–6.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung.

Notes on contributors

Pol Dalmau

Pol Dalmau, Leibniz-Institut fur Europaische Geschichte, Universalgeschichte, Mainz 55116, Germany; E-mail: [email protected]