Early Provincial Newspapers In England1700-1760

The journalism of Netherlands having the leading position in16th century, while England became world press centre in seventeenth century. And then the journalism of England was always on the forefront before20th century, leading the direction of newspaper development. The early provincial newspaper in England evolved form coranto to newspaper. The appearance of London Gazette marked the beginning of first formal newspaper of England.Owing to the existence of Licensing Act before1695, the publication of newspaper was confined to London only, thus no room for provincial newspaper at that time. There was an interval of37years between the appearance of London Gazette in1665and the appearance of first provincial newspaper Norwich Post.Because of newspaper, reading underwent a fundamental transition in18th century. As important medium of public sphere, newspaper also strengthened the political awareness of people. Besides, newspaper also pushed the development of provincial economy. In view of this, this paper aims to study the emergence, the development, and the content of early provincial newspaper in England.This paper is divided into four chapters. The first chapter mainly refers to the evolution of early provincial newspaper, which was from coranto to newspaper. Chapter two analyzes the causes for the emergence of early provincial newspaper. Firstly, publishing environment was much easier than before, the abolishment of the Licensing Act in1695became a turning point in the history of English newspaper. Secondly, the growing population and urbanization promoted the development of provincial newspaper. Finally, the printer also was an important factor.Chapter three refers to factors affecting the development of provincial newspaper. The renewal of print method was the first important factor. Besides, the Stamp Act had a close relation to the size, price and stages of development of the newspaper. The strengthen of delivery network can not be ignored.Chapter four gives a description about the content of provincial newspaper in detail. There were incessant wars in the first two decades of the18th century, so the first topic of provincial newspaper was to report the war and the strategy. The foreign news also occupied most parts of the front page of provincial newspapers. Besides, the history of newspaper has a close relationship with government, the government have to use newspaper to publicize inevitably. In order to attract more reader, the content also refers to trade and entertainment news. Finally, all kinds of advertisements gave vivid description of social life in18th century.The last part is the conclusion which briefly generalizes the influence of provincial newspaper. Firstly, the early provincial newspaper gradually assumed the task of public education, greatly increase literacy, made up poor education at that time. Second, politic became popularized because of provincial newspaper, and people often made use of newspaper to supervise the organ of state power. Finally, the provincial newspaper also promoted the development of trade and economic prosperity, improve the improved the general standard of living. All in all, the early provincial newspaper of vital importance to the course of British history in18th century.