Williams R - The Press the People Want

7/29/2019 Williams R - The Press the People Want

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/williams-r-the-press-the-people-want 1/6



and was circulated by subscription to booksellertechnically, the news-letter was inferior to the newand pamphlets, and greatly inferior to the techncovery, in 1665, of the true news paper. When appeared, however, it was in the context of the m

of printing established by the Licensing Act of 1it was not until this lapsed, in 1695, that the new tcould begin to be fully used.

Soon after the expansion had started, howeverform of control was attempted. State licensing bplaced by a market tax, the Stamp Duty and AdveTax begun in 1711 and steadily extended In



public, but to find ways — legal, technical, and — of reaching a large literate public that alreaThe very fast expansion that began in 1855, earlier in the Sunday press, can only be understo

terms. For, on the very lowest estimates, in seven or eight million adults on the British mainread, whereas the total daily and Sunday circulasome 335,000.

As we go on, into the period of nearly universwe find continuing marked rises in circulation, bthat can be described as the transformation of



its details continually vary. Between the wars therea marked extension of the combines into the provipress to 46 % in 1937, but some decline in control byleading combines in the national daily press. Throughcontinuing changes, the dominant economic feature o

British press in the twentieth century is this kind of capist organization, with a subsidiary feature of the grof independent or semi-independent trusts.

Social History of the Newspaper On the facts adduced we have to write a different s



politics. It looked lighter than The Times, butwentieth-century standards. This dense looally the result of Stamp Duty, which made pand which had the effect of reducing the spac

lines of the ordinary eighteenth-century panew paper, the Telegraph in 1855 or the MThe Times as it had become was a model, changes might be introduced, the new lowepublic must be offered, as in so many commthing very like the best only cheaper. Still, betwthe end of the century, reports of crime, seand human curiosities made their way ste



These interesting figures, which at times confirm etations, at other times conflict sharply with our orimages and preconceptions. An adequate social anof what has recently been happening will obviously neasy. But 1 think if we have got the history rigarriving at this point, the correct analysis can be It has certainly been impeded, hitherto, by the formula, which I hope we have now heard the laIn its place we have a more complex but I think interesting story.

Williams R - The Press the People Want

Documents

Transcript of Williams R - The Press the People Want