'All Other News (I Mean Lies)': The Forging of 17th Century News Discourse in a Sceptical News Society
The term 'fake news' seems to be the phrase of the moment, with Collins Dictionary's lexicographers observing a 365% increase in usage of the term since 2016. It is not, however, a new phenomenon. It was up to Nicholas Brownlees, Associate Professor of English at the University of Florence, to talk about the origins of news discourse in 17th Century Britain as well as ideas of fake news for this week's cultural talk, which ostensibly made it more appropriate than most for our modern, so-called 'post-truth' age.
Brownlees began by posing the question of why people read the news. He suggested that the desire to be 'in the know' was key in the 17th Century for people to show superiority over others, a sort of social/cultural capital. At the start of the century, many major events that could be simply explained were spread through bonfires, as well as through letters and, perhaps most of all, word of mouth. What little printed news there was came in the form of small pamphlets which weren't particularly popular. Later these developed into 'corantos', which was one sheet with news on both sides, formatted in two columns. As the demand for news increased, the news 'syndicates' were born, where weekly papers such as Londons Intelligencer of 1643 introduced a periodicity to the news which would make it more commercially successful, as people would want to buy each edition.
Despite this proliferation of news, however, there remained the credibility problem. How could these syndicates make sure that their news was believable in the eyes of a sceptical public? As Brownlees noted, the network of news-bearers who travelled up and down Europe had in general a lower social status than their readers, which added to the already sizeable scepticism of the readership. Indeed, in the Ben Jonson play Staple of News, one character, Peniboy, asks of news of 'any, any kind. So that it be newes, the newest that thou hast', which ridicules the idea of obtaining reliable news; what was more important was that it was current. Brownlees talked about one technique employed by news-bearers reporting from Europe, which was one of claiming the articles to be translations verbatim. One other technique was bombarding the articles with facts, statistics and general specificity, but it still remained a tricky subject. Of course, the news started to become more tribal in the 1640s due to escalating tensions between crown and parliament, with the papers Mercurius Aulicus and Mercurius Britanicus (sic) representing the former and latter sides respectively.
Brownlees ended his talk by comparing the nature of news back then with its current state. For example, he contrasted the very limited sources in the 17th Century with the seemingly endless websites, blogs and magazines today, as well as the emphasis on hard news in the past which differs much from the merging of news and comment in many outlets nowadays. There followed a very lively discussion where he was asked for his predictions for the news in the future, and he was cautiously optimistic that people are slowly realising the unreliability of websites like Twitter and Facebook if one really wants to be truly informed on complex world issues. He gave his talk with much humour and insight and we all learned a great deal about the precedents of distrust of the media, which, as I said earlier, made it not only fascinating but incredibly relevant.
Brownlees began by posing the question of why people read the news. He suggested that the desire to be 'in the know' was key in the 17th Century for people to show superiority over others, a sort of social/cultural capital. At the start of the century, many major events that could be simply explained were spread through bonfires, as well as through letters and, perhaps most of all, word of mouth. What little printed news there was came in the form of small pamphlets which weren't particularly popular. Later these developed into 'corantos', which was one sheet with news on both sides, formatted in two columns. As the demand for news increased, the news 'syndicates' were born, where weekly papers such as Londons Intelligencer of 1643 introduced a periodicity to the news which would make it more commercially successful, as people would want to buy each edition.
Despite this proliferation of news, however, there remained the credibility problem. How could these syndicates make sure that their news was believable in the eyes of a sceptical public? As Brownlees noted, the network of news-bearers who travelled up and down Europe had in general a lower social status than their readers, which added to the already sizeable scepticism of the readership. Indeed, in the Ben Jonson play Staple of News, one character, Peniboy, asks of news of 'any, any kind. So that it be newes, the newest that thou hast', which ridicules the idea of obtaining reliable news; what was more important was that it was current. Brownlees talked about one technique employed by news-bearers reporting from Europe, which was one of claiming the articles to be translations verbatim. One other technique was bombarding the articles with facts, statistics and general specificity, but it still remained a tricky subject. Of course, the news started to become more tribal in the 1640s due to escalating tensions between crown and parliament, with the papers Mercurius Aulicus and Mercurius Britanicus (sic) representing the former and latter sides respectively.
Brownlees ended his talk by comparing the nature of news back then with its current state. For example, he contrasted the very limited sources in the 17th Century with the seemingly endless websites, blogs and magazines today, as well as the emphasis on hard news in the past which differs much from the merging of news and comment in many outlets nowadays. There followed a very lively discussion where he was asked for his predictions for the news in the future, and he was cautiously optimistic that people are slowly realising the unreliability of websites like Twitter and Facebook if one really wants to be truly informed on complex world issues. He gave his talk with much humour and insight and we all learned a great deal about the precedents of distrust of the media, which, as I said earlier, made it not only fascinating but incredibly relevant.
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