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Technology and Public Opinion in the United States1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

H. A. Innis*
Affiliation:
The University of Toronto
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Extract

Few subjects are exposed to more pitfalls than those concerned with public opinion since the student is so completely influenced by the phenomena he attempts to describe. Objectivity may be improved by considering its development over a long period of time but even a description of this character must register the results of an astigma adjusted to present environment.

Freedom of the press in the United States emerged as a result of a clash with restrictive policies in Great Britain in the eighteenth century. Attempts of the mother country to extend such policies to the colonies involved an attack on the moulders of public opinion at a most sensitive point. Newspapers had developed in relation to printing establishments set up for the purposes of printing laws for the various assemblies and to the post office through which news and advertisements were collected and from which they were distributed. The stamp tax of 1765 imposed a heavy burden on a commodity which sold at a low price and was not to be tolerated by those chiefly concerned. They provoked an agitation which secured its withdrawal. It was followed by controversies leading to the revolution which attracted the contributions of able writers. The active role of the press in the revolution was crowned by a guarantee of freedom under the Bill of Rights.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1951

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Footnotes

1

A revision of a paper presented at the University of Michigan on April 19, 1949.

References

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7 Ibid., 70.

8 Salmon, L. M., The Newspaper and the Historian (New York, 1923), 426.Google Scholar The low level of journalism has been attributed to the vituperation introduced by journalists from England, such as Cobbett, and by Irishmen. Binns owned one of the bitterest organs against the English and William Duane, editor of the Aurora, was violent in denunciations. See Burt, A. L., The United States, Great Britain and British North America from the Revolution to the Establishment of Peace after the War of 1812 (New Haven, 1940), 301.Google Scholar

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11 Ibid., 177.

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24 Ibid., 163. A large number of newspaper editors were appointed to local postmasterships (Ibid., 161).

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53 Imports of rags into the United States were valued at $1,540,000 in the year ending June 30, 1860, at $1,245,000 (37,304,000 lb. including 16,678,000 1b. from Italy) in the year ending June 30, 1863, at $3,749,000 (103,520,000 1b. including 30,665,000 1b. from Italy and 43,404,000 1b. from England) in the year ending June 30, 1871.

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99 The influence of the book was limited, particularly as prices increased after 1900 while the prices of magazines declined. Books were handicapped further by postage charges from which they were not relieved until the administration of F. D. Roosevelt. Moreover, in the words of Mr. Dooley “Books is for them that can't enjoy themselves in any other way.” The influence of the magazine was suggested in the following comment on Collier's: “Nevertheless, although the fundamental aspect of the problem was not completely worked out, there was every sign that while we could hold the intellectual level and have a circulation approaching half a million, at thirty-five cents a copy, we could not double the circulation at that price, and keep the standard; and for my part I remain unconvinced that at any price a magazine can have a circulation of a million while keeping a quality that is stimulating to the most intelligent readers. …” The Changing Years, Reminiscences of Norman Hapgood (New York, 1930), 282–3.Google Scholar In the period after 1918 the influence of books and magazines was greatly affected by technological advances. The rise of photography on the one hand destroyed illustrations in magazines and compelled them to be literary and on the other hand became the basis of special publications. The verbosity of books and magazines was exploited by digests. In the Second World War the pocket-book industry expanded rapidly and threatened the position of writers. See J. T. Farrell, The Fate of Writing in America (n.p.,n.d.); also Miller, W. T., The Book Industry (New York, 1949).Google Scholar

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