The Importance of the Press
The newspaper is a powerful medium. It is powerful because it has the ability to influence the way that people view the world, as well as their opinion of what they see. In peaceful times (or in times of oppression, for sometimes they can appear to be happening at the same moment) the press is usually one of the instruments used by the state in order to maintain the status quo. However, during times of political unrest it is often the press who becomes the major antagonist in the fight against the government.
Why is this so? Why does the press get so deeply involved in, not just the reporting of, but the instigating and propagating of political change? In order to properly answer this question there are several other key ideas and questions which must first be examined. To understand the nature of the press' involvement in political change, one must initially understand the nature of political change in its own right. In this vein, the first section of the paper is dedicated to this investigation. An examination of the motives behind revolution will be given in order to provide a framework for the second part of the paper, which will look at the involvement of the press during revolutionary times in more specific terms. The French revolution of 1789 will be used as a backdrop for this inquiry.
There are many different types of political movements, and accordingly there are many different reasons for these movements to occur. Value-oriented and norm-oriented movements deal with matters of social and political concern, but do so in the setting of the already existing political and social structures.
Revolutionary movements seek to make fundamental changes to society in order to establish a completely new political and social order.1 The distinction being that the first aims to make subtle changes to society from within, while the latter's aim is to make drastic changes to society by getting rid of the principles that society was based on.
Usually this will involve a change in political beliefs and values, or political ideology. In today's world there are numerous forms of political ideologies, but in essence they are all derived from two basic root ideologies; socialism and liberalism. Socialism is an ideology w...
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... Prelude to Power, The Parisian radical Press: 1789-1791,
Maryland: the Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976
The Influence of the Enlightenment on the French revolution, edited by William F.
Church, Canada: D.C. Heath and Company, 1974
Darton, Robert and Daniel Roche, Revolution in Print: The Press in France 1775-
1800, USA: New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox & Tilden Foundations, 1989
Guy, James John, People, Politics & Government, Toronto: Maxwell Macmillan
Canada Inc., 1990.
Osler, Andrew. News, The Evolution of Journalism in Canada. Missisauga: Copp
Clark Pitman Ltd., 1993.
Popkin, Jeremy D. Revolutionary News, The Press in France 1789-1799. USA: Duke
University Press, 1990.
Footnotes 1James John Guy, People, Politics and Government, (Toronto, 1990),
p. 103. 2 Ibid., p. 81 3 Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of revolution, (USA,
1968), pp. 162-3 4Ibid., p. 28. 5Andrew M. Osler, News, The Evolution of
Journalism in Canada, (Canada, 1993), p. 54. 6Jeremy D. Popkin, Revolutionary
News The Press in France, 1789-1799, (USA, 1990), pp. 19-20. 7Ibid., p. 22-3.
8Ibid., p.25. 9Ibid., p. 26. 10Ibid., p.28. 11Ibid., p. 2. 12Ibid., p. 3.
13Ibid., p. 3. 14Osler, p. 54.
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were not as radical as the transformation to democratic thought. It is here that Wood points out the “uncontrolla...
of 'rebellious' liberation's and shifting views, a change fundamental to the future. These years for
the French Revolution. Hunt, Lynn & Censer, Jack. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press (2001)
“If we measure the radicalism of revolutions by the degree of social misery or economic deprivation suffered, or by the number of people killed or manor houses burned, then this conventional emphasis on the conservatism of the American Revolution becomes true enough. B...
In his book, The Anatomy of Revolution, Crane Brinton describes four historically significant revolutions in modern states, the English Revolution of the 1640s, the American Revolution of 1776, the French Revolution of 1789, and the Russian Revolution of 1917, and compares uniform trends and commonalities within those revolutions. Brinton hypothesizes that those revolutions have specific similarities in their inception, manifestation, conduct, and conclusion.
middle of paper ... ... You don’t have a revolution in which you love your enemy, and you don’t have a revolution in which you are begging the system of exploitation to integrate you into it. Revolutions overturn the systems. Revolutions destroy the systems.”
... truly set the political system of America apart from the political system of England. By only looking at the textbook definition of a revolution it can be argued that the revolution truly was not revolutionary, but after the colonists won the war nothing went back to normal. The colonists could not conserve what they had before, but instead had to completely upheave the entire system. Therefore by the definition of what a revolution actually is, allows the American Revolution to be truly revolutionary.
Petrou, Micheal. “Inside A Revolution.” Maclean’s 127.9 (2014): 20. MAS Ultra - School Edition. Web. 5 Mar. 2014
Urgo, Joseph R. "A Prologue to Rebellion: The Awakening and the Habit of Self-expression." The Southern Literary Journal 20.1 (1987): 22-32.
The essential cause of the French revolution was the collision between a powerful, rising bourgeoisie and an entrenched aristocracy defending its privileges”. This statement is very accurate, to some extent. Although the collision between the two groups was probably the main cause of the revolution, there were two other things that also contributed to the insanity during the French revolution – the debt that France was in as well as the famine. Therefore, it was the juxtaposing of the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy as well as the debt and famine France was in that influenced the French Revolution.
Nardo, Don. A. The French Revolution. San Diego, California: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1999. Print.
The revolution was partly founded by the ideas that were born from the philosophers of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement during the 18th century that encouraged the rejection of the social and religious values of the time in favour of the search for truth and knowledge . The Declaration echoes the Enlightenment’s theories that state that the people should have control over the governm...
The media is often considered to be biased. The reason for this is because they do not act neutral on the things that they report on. They usually give their point of view and tend to warp the information so it’s easily digestible by the average person. This type of “nugget feeding,” can influence the judgment of some one who has no idea what is going on. The media tends to sensationalize the news by making it seem dramatic, and compelling. This hooks the viewer, and keeps them tuned in. The purpose of this is for ratings, and most importantly money. The media has become less professional, and their morality has gone down hill. The editors/gatekeepers decide what information is sent out for the public to see, and hear. This is another way that the news is shaped for our viewing pleasure.
New York: Barnes & Noble, 1969. Print. The. Kreis, Steven. A. A. "Lecture 12: The French Revolution - Moderate Stage, 1789-1792.
There have been several vital products of the Age of Revolutions but most importantly was the introduction of post-colonial attitudes with the need of self-governess away from empires overseas. This was achieved through the democracy and constitutions which still are the most important legacy existing in the modern world. It this outcome that societies were able to create influential pieces of works and change how societies operated on a daily bases with the United States composing the Declaration of Independence in 1776 establishing the cornerstone of this period of paradoxically an era of stability and anarchy. This essay aims to support this claim that post-colonialism as an output of the Age of Revolutions drove the significant events and personalities even after the formation of the New World with the aid of liberal thought that was established back from the Enlightenment Age. Without the identification of post-colonial ideas, the Age of Revolutions would not have been such as ideologically productive time period.