The Role of Communication in the Shaping of British Identity - Assignment Example

The Role of Communication in the Shaping of 19th Century British Identity People take communication for granted in modern society. With the aid of a device that can fit in anyone’s pocket, people are able to send text messages, emails, or make phone calls to anyone in nearly an area of the world. This, of course, changes the international identity of the world in general. Communication, of course, has always been of great importance to any country in particular. Think of the current levels to which communication has changed the global community. While the internet has changed the way many people view the world, there have been technological advances in previous centuries that have had as great an impact on the world. The days of hand carried messages, such as during the Battle of Marathon, had a very particular effect for countries. While the story of a lone runner making the twenty-five mile journey to ask for reinforcements might be somewhat historically inaccurate, it still serves as an example of the ways in which people were forced to communicate in order to accomplish various tasks in everyday life. In particular, England during the nineteenth century grew in such a way because of changes in the communication . Of all of the various forms of communication that were developed during this time there were three that were of the utmost importance. In particular, the newspaper, postal service, and the railways grew in such a way as to change the way the entire country communicated, not only within the confines of the country but abroad as well. Not only did these three developments change the way people communicated, but it changed the national identity of the country as a whole. England was a far more multi-cultural country in the nineteenth century than during current times. With a myriad of languages being spoken between England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, a unified national identity was lacking due to the difficulty in communication: “There is a special kind of contemporaneous community which language alone suggests” (Anderson 145). The only identity that could be said to exist in Britain was a fragmented identity. There is always a sense of otherness between two groups who speak different languages. Two people from the same country who speak different languages will have a harder time communicating and identifying with each other than two people from foreign countries who speak the same language. However, at the turn of the century the spread of English newspapers helped to dissolve the differences to a certain extent. Wales and Scotland will always have a sense of their own cultural history in regards to England, though with English being by far the dominant language in both regions, their identity can only be seen through the lens of English as a language. Newspaper helped to create a more solidified national identity. Newspapers had a strong impact on England in general. The newspaper provides people with a way to receive the exact same information as what other people are receiving, as opposed to the ways that a piece of information would change due to multiple retellings using a strictly word of mouth model of information distribution. This allowed for people to develop a sense of unity across the country more than what had previously been experienced. Newspapers, of course, were nothing new in nineteenth century England: “London-based newspapers appeared from 1621, provincial from 1690...By early in the next century daily newspapers were being produced and mailed nationally in Britain” (Hogg 32). What was new, though, was the extent to which they spread. Though centrally based in London initially, Wales received the first English newspaper in 1804 and a second in 1807, and Scotland had thirteen English newspapers in 1800, that number doubling in twenty years. Though the spread of English as a language into these regions was slow, the obvious final effect that in had is obvious. Welsh and Gaelic are now spoken more as a matter of heritage, and though the spread of English language newspapers did not single-handedly diminish the role of non-English languages in Wales and Scotland, it cannot be denied that there was a significant impact. Newspapers also attempted to appeal as a broadly entertaining format as well. Though the dissemination of information was central to their existence, they also attempted to appeal to people as a means of entertainment as well: “The rise of newspapers, and, more specifically, popular newspapers, is often linked with their low price, increasing coverage of soft news items like disasters, crime, glamour and romance, and their spectacular layout including huge and flashy headlines and illustrations” (Fischer 91). Consider modern water-cooler culture. Discussions of various television programming are central to this concept. People connect through shared experiences, and the ubiquity of televisions enables people to connect through these shared experiences. Plays were one of the major forms of entertainment in England during the 18th and 19th centuries, but considering the limit of scope of the audience of these plays due to a centralised location of the theater, plays cannot be considered analogous with water-cooler culture entertainment. While many people would be able to see these plays, there was not the instantaneous dissemination across the country as a whole. Newspapers, in considering their entertainment quality, could serve as the closest thing to the 19th century water-cooler culture that we have. Crime, glamour, and romance stories featured in newspapers really served more as entertainment rather than hard news. Though they were true stories, with the events described happening farther and farther away from the reader with the expansion of newspapers, readers were naturally at a distance from the stories, and they could be read more for their entertainment quality than simply as an event that actually happened to somebody. With a form of entertainment available to basically the whole country, people could feel more included within a larger community, shifting the national identity from being isolated and separated by villages and towns to being a more cohesive and whole identity. The rise in newspapers also increased the interest in politics in general. With access to more information, the middle class felt more as though they were intricately involved and affected by the political landscape. In the previous century, newspapers were more conservative, and there was careful consideration into what might be considered inflammatory by the middle class citizens: Just as newspapers, both ministerial and opposition, differentiated clearly in the political sphere, until the French Revolution, between liberty and license, the people, who were to be appealed to and their opinions sought, and the mob who had to be kept from their portals of power, so there could be no appeal to the populace for social reform (Black 247). This tendency changed in the 19th century, though, and newspapers, with their rapid expansion, became more vocal. With the sheer number of different newspapers that were available, a deregulation of opinions was the only natural next step in the history of newspapers. With more voices being expressed, more people felt as though they were being spoken for, and large groups of people who previously felt as though they had no voice in the political sphere felt as though they were being heard and responded to. This shaped the national identity of England as a nation even more so than either the spread of English language newspapers to Wales and Scotland or even newspapers as a form of entertainment. There were, of course, several hindrances to the existence of newspapers. The Stamp Tax, for instance, in its ever incrementally increasing size, proved to put a strain on newspapers: “The Government also took advantage of the financial difficulties with which it was confronted to raise the stamp duty from time to time. The existence of the newspapers was thus made increasingly difficult” (Halevy 142). In 1836, the lowering of the Stamp Tax allowed for an increase in the readership of newspapers. The end of the Stamp Tax in 1855 further allowed an even broader audience to gain access to newspapers. Many factors led to the high increase of newspapers. To an extent, the readership of a paper did not depend upon the demand for the newspaper, but the ability of the printing press to reproduce the paper: Before steam was used it was impossible to do more than strike off 450 copies of any papers in an hour. The circulation of a newspaper depended, not on the demand for it, but on the capability of the hand-press to meet the demand. The imperfect machine, introduced in 1814, enabled 1100 sheets to be impressed in an hour (Spencer 259). Technology helped to increase the readership of newspapers, but technological advances were not limited to newspapers. The railways and the postal service expanded in ways to aid communication. With a more expansive railway system, newspapers could be disseminated in a much larger fashion. The railways were seen as a highly important factor to the British government as well, and as such were responsible for much of its expansion: “It will be seen that the state recognised the power of the railways to minister to its necessities, and was as eager to claim its services, as it was willing to influence its destinies” (Francis 18). The national identity that was forged through newspapers could not have been as effective without the technological advances made by the railways. The railways were important to communication in other ways as well. Though railways were not new to the 19th century as well, their considerable advancement was responsible for their increased role in British life: From the year 1815 the attention of the scientific men had been especially directed to the point, and after the 1820’s the improvements made were very considerable. They had always been used for some time before they were put on railways, but were much more rapidly improved upon afterwards (Gilbert 88). In part, the railways were originally part of the coal mining system, and the advancement of the system of railways helped to lessen coal mining‘s dependence upon waterways: “Just as the coalfield sprawled outward over time, and the railways grew from a fragmented set of lines to an integrated regional network, the industrial complex evolved in the course of the nineteenth century to leave a large footprint on the Northeast’s economy” (Milne 59). While initially designed for transporting coal, the intricate system was also adept at transporting both newspapers and post. The postal service, which included the telegraph, is the final aspect of communication which helped develop the British national identity in the 19th century. Prior to the 19th century, the use of the postal service was more common among the upper class. This was in part due to the Stamp Tax as well as a lower literacy rate. With the lowering and repealing of the Stamp Tax and an increase in literacy rates in the 19th century, the post became more and more available to the middle class until it seemed as though the post was designed specifically for communication amongst the middle-class: The subsequent increase in postal flows served only to confirm this impression. In 1874mAndrew Wynter surveyed the period of change: ‘As long as there was no public post in existence, the relations of the mass of Britons extended no further than there own towns and villages, where any communications they were required to make were made orally (Vincent 34) The idea that the British national identity was fragmented because of distance and isolation is further enforced here. Without a means of communication, there very well might not have been much of anything outside of these individual villages. They were affected to an extent by politics, but there were no means by which they could be kept up to date. Without an active way to keep track of the various political activities in London, there was no reason to feel overly involved with the political machinations of the country. With the use of post, people were much more easily able to be informed of various happenings throughout the country. For example, the death of William IV in 1837 was widely known throughout the country not in a matter of days or weeks but within hours. With the ability to be able to be more keenly tuned into the important events of the country, the British national identity was formed through this increased ability to communicate. The telegraph, a means to almost instantaneously send a message from one location to another, also aided in the communications advances made during the 19th century. While the technology was valuable in England, the laying of the Atlantic capable made the telegraph exponentially more valuable: “The year 1866 was signalised by a great scientific exploit--the successful laying of the electric telegraph across the Atlantic ocean” (Molesworth 258). With this advent, continental Europe, England, and North America were all now connected through a means of instantaneous information. Not only were the various villages across England no longer isolated from information and communication, but they could communicate now with continental Europe and North America. This expansion of the ability to communicate helped to form England as an entity which would continue to expand its borders beyond into the far reaches of the globe. The British national identity was not isolated to the British Isles. With the British empire expanding throughout the 19th century, the increased sense of what it meant to be British followed along with it. Because of the increase in the ability to communicate, the empire was made possible at all in the first place: “Moreover, but for steam navigation, the postal service and the telegraphs, the amazing growth of the British empire and the unity which pervades it would have been impossible” (Cross 727). Considering this, we can state that though the expansion of the British empire was made possible by the advances in communication technologies, but the British identity was also shaped by the idea that Britain was no longer contained to the isles. While America was no longer a colony of England at this point, in a sense it might not have seemed as concrete to those who were not involved with either politics or voyages back and forth. America, this far away place were messages would take weeks to communicate back and forth, was not as real to the average British citizen until the laying of the Atlantic cable. All of the advances made possible in the 19th century forever shaped the British national identity. While perhaps not to the extent in modern times, England was now connected intricately with the world, from North America to India. With the alacrity by which information could be transferred, the world became a smaller place. Not only were the various towns and villages from Wales and Scotland now more intertwined with the social, economic, and political machinations of England, but they were now connected into the burgeoning international identity being created. The national identity was formed because of the various modes of communication, but it was also formed through the ideas of an expanding country and empire. The role of communication has only increased since the 19th century, and the continued evolution of the British national identity now informs the global, international identity as well. Works Cited Barker, Hannah, Burrows, Simon, Press, politics and the public sphere in Europe and North America, 1760-1820 .Cambridge University Press, 2002. Black, Jeremy, The English Press in the Eighteenth Century. Taylor & Francis, 1987. Benedict, Richard, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Verso, 1991. Cross, Arthur Lyon, A Shorter History of England and Greater Britain. The Macmillan company, 1920. Fischer, Andreas, Text Types and Corpora: Studies in Honour of Udo Fries. Gunter Narr Verlag, 2002. Francis, John, A History of the English Railway: Its Social Relations and Revelations. 1820-1845. Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1851. Gilbert, James, The Railways of England: Containing an Account of Their Origin, Progress, and Present State; a Description of the Several Parts of a Railway, and a History of Their Invention; Together with a Map. E. Grattan, 1838. Halevy, Elie, A History of the English People in 1815. Routledge, 1987. Milne, Graeme J., North East England, 1850-1914: The Dynamics of a Maritime-industrial Region. Boydell Press, 2006. Molesworth, William Nassau, The History of England from the Year 1830-1874. Chapman and Hall, 1874. Tegg, William, Posts & Telegraphs, Past and Present: With an Account of the Telephone and Phonograph. W. Tegg & Co., 1878 Walpole, Spencer, A History of England from the Conclusion of the Great War in 1815. Longmans, Green, and co., 1913. Read More