When News Was New

When News was New investigates how news has re-invented itself at different historical moments--from medieval storytellers to 19th century telegraph news agencies to 21st century bloggers.

• Tracks the evolution of news through history
• Explores the regular reconstruction of news, the salability of news, and whether objectivity matters
• Provides an innovative approach to the history of news; clear, succinct writing; and effective use of photographs, maps, and tables which have strong appeal to the student reader
• Offers a new way of understanding news in our history and culture

List of Figures and Tables viii

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: When News Was New x

1 Temporalization: How News Became New 1

2 Cosmopolitanization: An Older Phenomenon Than We Think 19

3 Globalization: When News Became Global 42

4 Commodifi cation: How To Sell News 58

5 Localization: Places in News 76

6 Nationalization: News and the Nation-states 92

7 Epilogue: Today Was Yesterday 112

Bibliography 133

Index 146

"A well structured analysis of journalism and what actually entails news, this is both an educational and thought provoking exploration into the purity of news. (M/C Reviews, March 2010)

"Terhi Rantanen's When News Was New is much more than a narrative of journalism history. This is an investigation into the very nature of journalism as it changes through the centuries." (Polis Journalism and Society, April 2009)

Terhi Rantanen is Professor and Director of the Master's Proframme in Global Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has published extensively on global news and is the author of six books and more than fifty chapters and articles published in the UK, the USA, Austria, Finland, Russia, Sweden and Taiwan. What is news, and why sell it? What is one buying when one buys news? Is it the ‘objectivity’ of news that matters, or is it rather its newness, and the public’s appetite for the latest scoop? If so, how is news made new?

When News was New investigates how news has re-invented itself at different historical moments--from medieval storytellers to 19th century telegraph news agencies to 21st century bloggers. Rantanen argues that the newness of news has been regularly reconstructed, and that news is mostly old stories made new. Reaching out from journalism and journalism studies, this book surveys the wider social implications of news.

From hawkers and ballad-mongers in the 1800s, to the current moment of blogging and pod-casting, where modern bloggers ‘sing’ their stories alongside other performers, When News was New book tracks the evolution of the news, concluding that the era of ‘pure’ news is over: the difference between news and new stories has again become blurred.

"This is a work of exemplary scholarship that cannot be missed by students of communication, and will become indispensable reading for journalists and media executives struggling to grasp the new digital world." Manuel Castells, Wallis Annenberg Chair of Communication Technology and Society, University of Southern California, Los Angeles

"Terhi Rantanen?s thoughtful, eloquent and seminal study of the shifting historical understandings of news, unravels and challenges existing scholarly orthodoxy. When News Was New is a significant book which makes compelling and essential reading for everyone interested in journalism studies." Bob Franklin, Professor of Journalism Studies, Cardiff University

"Terhi Rantanen has given us a brilliant archeology of the variable meanings of news." Saskia Sassen, Columbia University, author of A Sociology of Globalization