Print Media
A brief history of newspapers
The earliest variation on a newspaper was a daily sheet published in 59 BC in Rome called Acta Diurna (Daily Events), which Julius Caesar ordered to be posted throughout the city. The earliest known printed newspaper was in Beijing in
748.
In 1451, Johannes Gutenberg uses a press to print an old German poem, and two years later prints a 42-line Bible – the significance being the mass production of print products, ushering in an era of newspapers, magazines, and books. By 1500, the genesis of a postal system can be seen in France, while book publishing becomes popular throughout Europe and the first paper mill can be found
(England).
Zeitung (newspaper) is a news report published in Germany in 1502, while Encountre Trewe becomes the earliest known English-language news sheet in 1513. Germany’s Avisa Relation oder Zeitung, in 1609, is the first regularly published newspaper in Europe. Forty-four years after the first newspaper in England, the Oxford Gazette is published, utilizing double columns for the first
time; the Oxford/London Gazette is the first true newspaper. The first North American newspaper, Public Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestic, was published in 1690 in Boston.
The 1700s was a century in which market elements were created that encouraged the development of daily newspapers: rising literacy, the formation of nation-states, a rising literary and philosophical tradition emphasizing democratic involvement in government, and technologies that supported newspaper production. In short, it was a great news century. The first daily newspaper was The Daily Courant in London, 1702. In 1754, The Daily Advertiser in London uses the first four-column format. France’s first daily newspaper appears in 1777, Journal de Paris, while the first United States daily was The Pennsylvania Packet in 1784.
In 1873, an illustrated daily newspaper can be seen in New York. In 1878 the first full-page newspaper advertisements appear, and in 1880 the first
photographs are seen in newspapers, using halftones.
With the basic technical groundwork for the modern newspaper in place by the late 19th century, the story of newspapers in the 20th century was about professional development and adaptation to changing consumer and media markets. The story also involved an evolving business model that rode an evergrowing wave of mass-market advertising.
Answer the following questions:
1. What was the first regularly published newspaper in Europe?
2. In which newspaper were the double columns utilized for the first time?
3. When and where was the first North American newspaper published?
4. What were the market elements that encouraged the development of daily newspaper in the 17th century?
5. What were the first daily newspapers in London, Paris and the US? When did
they come into circulation?
Mass Media 