How Paradigms Influence Society in the Information Age - Evolving Global Information Infrastructure and Information Transfer - page 38

feature stories, editorials, and advertising. Traditionally it has been printed on low-
quality paper called “newsprint” but now is distributed also (or exclusively) in digital
format via the Internet.
Early precursors of newspapers can be traced to ancient Rome's government
announcements carved in metal or stone and posted in public places. In China,
news sheets produced by the government circulated among court officials during
the late Han dynasty of the second and third centuries CE. During the eighth-cen-
tury Tang dynasty, a formal handwritten publication that disseminated government
news was published and circulated to intellectuals and government officials. By the
Ming dynasty (1367-1644), news publications circulated to a wide circle of society.
“Even though the Chinese had produced the essential technical prerequisites of
the newspaper in its European guise before the year 1500, the Chinese press was
very slow to develop” (Smith 1979, 14).
The development of the printing press in the late 15th century spawned in
Europe printed accounts of single news events. Smith (1979) identifies the public-
ation of news leaflets in Vienna, Poland, and Paris. By the end of the 16th century,
numerous printers were publishing news leaflets and pamphlets on an irregular
basis.
Johann Carolus is usually credited with publishing the first newspaper in Stras-
bourg, Germany, beginning in 1609. Smith (1979) credits Holland and Germany as
the countries that gave root to the newspaper. Towns along trade routes were first
to establish newspapers: Cologne in 1610, Frankfurt am Main in 1615, Berlin in
1617, Hamburg in 1618, and several other towns in the 1620s.
As the 18th century began, improvements in the British postal system made
daily publication and distribution practical. The first such daily newspaper was the
single-sheet Daily Courant (1702-1735).
In Boston in 1690, Benjamin Harris published the first newspaper in the Amer-
ican colonies, Publick Occurrences , but the British government suppressed it
after one edition was published. The Boston News-Letter , initiated in 1704 by
John Campbell, was the first continuously published newspaper in the colonies.
Soon after, weekly papers were published in New York and Philadelphia. The
Pennsylvania Evening Post was the first American daily newspaper, first published
in 1783.
New developments in technology influenced printing techniques and newspa-
per distribution. In 1814 the steam-driven “double-press” was introduced at the
London Times , increasing production to 5,000 copies per hour. Consequently, the
Times 's circulation rose from 5,000 to 50,000 by the 1850s. The invention of mech-
anical lead type, curved printing plates, automatic ink-feeds, and the cylindrical
rotary press all contributed to faster publication and distribution of newspapers.