The Enlightenment, and its role in the development of the press.

The enlightenment gave birth to Journalism.  The invention of the printing press in the 1440s is regarded by many (including Einstein) as the most important in history. It meant that text could finally be mass produced. At first, this was inevitably used to print bibles during the protestant revolution. Martin Luthor wanted people to be able to read the bible in every language in the world. This gave further rise to Christianity. The printing press soon allowed early works of Journalism to make an appearance in the form of pamphleteers during the English civil war.

In 1702, the printing press printed The Daily Courant; the world’s first newspaper. This consisted of a single page with two columns, some way away from what we see in today’s newsagents.  This eventually gave rise to a host of ‘comment papers’ one of these ‘the spectator written by Joseph Addison became particularly popular with its wit, sarcasm and social commentary.  Travel journalism was popular, pamphlets were used for people to document journeys around the country, Cobbet’s Rural Rides was all about the countryside and the things that Cobbet had witnessed during his travels.

An important early piece of work was John Locke’s ‘essay concerning human understanding’. In it he puts across his ideas about empiricism, and the way in which humans pick up ideas; through sense experience. He also discusses the way in which we derive complex/abstract ideas through sense data. It’s in this essay that Locke coins the phrase ‘Tabula Rasa’ meaning blank slate to describe the human mind at birth.  The essay is one of the key sources of empiricism, which is an invaluable tool for journalists.  He refutes rationalist assertions in part one,  sets out his theory of ideas in part 2, discusses language in part 3 and talks about knowledge in part 4.