Distant news and local opinion: How the Telegraph Affected Spatial and Temporal Horizons in Northern Scandinavia, 1850-1880
The electric telegraph lines constructed across Europe starting in the late 1840's profoundly changed conditions for long-distance communication in the region. This project analyses the effects of the electric telegraph on northern Scandinavia.
Focus is on the relationship between time and space in 7 newspapers from Norway, Sweden and Finland. By investigating 1) the motives behind extending telegraph lines to these regions, 2) the ideals associated with the technology itself, 3) the representation of time and space in the news and 4) the spatial and temporal references of the concept "public opinion", the study gives a new perspective on the development of communications in this area. Using the spread of technology as a lens through which we may observe societal change, this work will produce a transnational history relating the idiosyncrasies of northern Scandinavia to the common developments affecting Europe during the second half of the 19th century.
Focus is on the relationship between time and space in 7 newspapers from Norway, Sweden and Finland. By investigating 1) the motives behind extending telegraph lines to these regions, 2) the ideals associated with the technology itself, 3) the representation of time and space in the news and 4) the spatial and temporal references of the concept "public opinion", the study gives a new perspective on the development of communications in this area. Using the spread of technology as a lens through which we may observe societal change, this work will produce a transnational history relating the idiosyncrasies of northern Scandinavia to the common developments affecting Europe during the second half of the 19th century.
Final report
Final Report of Nordic Spaces Project
Distant news and local opinion
Registration No: PDOKJ093/2006
Project title: Distant news and local opinion: How the telegraph affected spatial and temporal horizons in northern Scandinavia, 1850-1880
1. Which was the aim of the project and has it been fulfilled? Has the project plan been adjusted?
The topic of the project concerned the electric telegraph lines constructed across Europe starting in the late 1840's, which profoundly changed conditions for long-distance communication in the region. Focusing on the relationship between time and space, the purpose of the project was to analyse the effects of the electric telegraph on northern Scandinavia through a study of Nordic newspapers. By investigating 1) the motives behind extending telegraph lines to these distant regions, 2) the ideals associated with the technology itself, 3) the representation of time and space in the news and 4) the spatial and temporal references of the concept "public opinion", the study aimed to give a new perspective on the development of communications in this area. It thereby sought to use the spread of technology as a lens through which we may observe societal change, and to produce a transnational history relating the idiosyncrasies of northern Scandinavia to the common developments affecting Europe during the second half of the 19th century
The purpose can be said to have been fulfilled, and different publications have addressed different aspects of the key problem, see further below under heading 3, publications.
2. What are the three most important results of the project?
· Firstly, the project has indicated that no inherently Nordic dimension existed in telegraph news. There was in the late 19th century no need for a temporally integrated Nordic region, no need for a Nordic "now". Although telegrams were sometimes organized according to larger geographical categories, such as "the neighbouring countries", the cost and character of using the telegraph restricted usage of the new technology to particularly time-sensitive information. Only when such information was present, was the telegraph used to convey Nordic or Scandinavian perspectives. One example of this was the Scandinavianist meetings, but even these gave rise to nationally coloured reporting. This also mirrors the infrastructural development, where lines were built following traditional national routes, mostly connecting the larger cities within the respective nations.
· A second key result is the widespread acceptance of the notions of speedier communication related to the electric telegraph in the Nordic region. Although some critical voices were heard, numerous techno-evangelical accounts of the possibilities of the new communication were echoed in the Press across the region. This positive view regarding ideas contrasted clearly to another key result regarding practical use:
· Another key result concerns the practical problems related to the electric telegraph. Although the optimism was strong, in practice the Northern parts of Scandinavia struggled with high maintenance costs and difficulties in operating the network. In some cases harsh winters contributed to these circumstances. The relatively lower population in the North also made it less motivated to build parallel lines, and with single lines being the norm for a longer period, breaks and errors were more difficult to overcome. This asymmetry in some cases meant that the relative difference between the smoothly running networks of larger cities, and the problem-ridden ones of the periphery, increased communicative inequalities across space, rather than levelling out the field.
3. What results have been achieved in terms of publications (including open access publications): monographs, peer review articles, book chapters, conference papers, and others?
For a one-person project, this has been fairly productive. It has produced 4 co-edited books, one peer reviewed journal special issue, 5 journal articles, 12 book chapters and 9 conference papers. (Full list in Appendix A) The most important publication is Communicating the North (Ashgate 2013, In press) which I have co-edited with Peter Stadius, Helsinki U. This book looks at the interrelation between communication structures in the Nordic region and images of the Nordic region, from a transnational and historical perspective. I have contributed 4 chapters, one where I am sole author, two co-authored with Peter Stadius, and one together with Magdalena Hillström, Linköping U. In my chapter on the Nordic dimension of the European news market I also discuss the role of news agencies. In the special issue of the German peer reviewed journal Comparativ , I have contributed one article discussing the telegraph and notions of globalization (with Frank Schipper, Eindhoven) and one article discussing more quantitative aspects of time-space compression in the Nordic periphery. I also have one chapter in an international peer reviewed book ("Northern Experiences of Global Telegraphy", in Hampf Michaela & Simone Müller-Pohl (eds) Global Communication Electric: Social, Cultural, and Political Aspects of Telegraphy (Frankfurt: Campus verlag, 2013), where I discuss similar issues. In 1800-talets mediesystem (Lund: Makadam/Riksbankens jubileumsfond, 2011) I wrote an introductory chapter on different conceptions of the Nordic region from general points of view, including media history. Other publications have addressed other aspects of the overall research issue, such as the nature of particular forms of source materials which were used.
4. What academic activities such as seminars, workshops, conference panels and similar have been conducted?
In 2011 I co-organized a session at the Third European Congress of World and Global history, London School of Economics & Political Science, London, which dealt with ideas and reality in the history of the electric telegraph, focusing on the concept of "asymmetry". The session sought to highlight the contrasts between developments in different parts of the world. I contributed a case study based on the Nordic region. The panel consisted of members from Japan, Portugal, Holland and Sweden. I was also part of a panel at the Annual Meeting of The Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study, Chicago, where I presented different ways of looking at the Nordic region, and how different definitions provide different perspectives on history, in particular in the field of communication. For the Communicating the North book, we held two book workshops in Stockholm, with around 10 participants in each. I have also presented the project on a number of informal seminars.
5. What results have been achieved in terms of outreach activities such as newspaper articles, interviews, seminars, lectures, web pages and others?
Early in the project period I maintained a web site for the project, but later the informtion was integrated into the joint Nordic Spaes web site. I have participated in the seminar Var och hur finns Norden, Voksena?sen, Oslo, in 2010, which included an outreach lecture. In September 2011 I participated in the seminar "Att stärka Norden - att uppdatera nordismen" at the Swedish Book- and library fair in Gothenburg together with author Sofi Oksanen and EU minister Birgitta Ohlsson. This seminar was also broadcasted on Kunskapskanalen. I also participated in the public seminar, "Norden as a Historical Region", arranged in Helsinki in November 2011, a collaboration between with the Centre for Nordic Studies, University of Helsinki (CENS), and Nordens Institut i Finland (NIFIN).
I have also done media appearances, including an interview in the Nordens tidning (No 4 2012) as well as press releases related to the programme.
6. Has the project generated any new research problems?
Several new research questions have arisen as a consequence of the project. One sub study concerned ideals related to the technology itself, and the results showed a widespread acceptance of ideals regarding rapid communication across time and space. During the course of the project it became clear that one dimension of these ideals was the democratic possibilities of technologies, that enhanced communication would facilitate a more in-depth public discourse. Although the telegraph itself, with the short and often expensive format for the messages, did not come across as the prime medium for enhanced public, the emergence of a new technology per se inspired a lot of reflection on how technology could contribute to a continuous public debate on relevant issues. This is relevant in regard to recent international publications, in particular a new book on telecommunications (John, Network Nation, 2010) which questions the basic premise that telecommunications had an intrinsic democratic value. Instead, he argues, the combination of business interests and political structures preserved a distinctly elitist perspective on telecommunications for at least 60 years.
This aligns with a broader research field, namely technologies of opinion formation. Two publications emanating from the project have touched upon processes in the mid 19th century, where large-scale opinion manifestations, also on a transnational scale, activated a whole palette of communication technologies in order to set a direction to public opinion. Existing research in the cultural histories of the media have begun looking into the interconnectedness of historical media forms, and the project has also addressed this in terms of a media system. However, an important field which would warrant further inquiry is how actors, individuals and/ or organizations, including public entities, have historically used the totality available media formats and outlets to create favourable conditions for political decisions. In this mix during the 19th century the electric telegraph was an important component, due to its ability to instantly connect audiences, which were scattered geographically.
7. Has the project generated any spin-off effects (for example, new research collaboration, new research ideas and applications)?
Early on I collaborated with Patrik Lundell, Lund, on a book regarding the historical media system. I have also developed closer collaboration with Frank Schipper, Eindhoven Uninversity, Yakup Bektas, Tokyo Institute of Technology, and Ana Paula Silva, Centro Interuniversitário de História das Ciências e da Tecnologia, New University Lisbon as well as other researchers within the Tensions of Europe international network. In editing the Communicating the North volume, I have collaborated with ca 10 scholars in fields such as media- and communication studies and Scandinavian studies, with whom I had no previous collaboration. One topic of the project concerned the concept of public opinion, and in 2010 I participated in a workshop on "Public Opinion, Politics and Press in Europe (1789-1914), at Universidad de Cantabria, Santander, where I collaborated with Prof. Gonzalo de Capellan.
In May 2013 I will participate with a paper based on results in the project at the workshop New Technologies and Cultures of Communication in the 19th and 20th Centuries at the German Historical Institute in Washington. There I expect to make new contacts with American scholars.
The project has thus been a very enriching experience in terms of scholarly networking, and I expect to continue collaborating with many of the people I have gotten to know during the project period. This experience has been especially important for my career since I got a one-person grant, but through the collaboration in the Nordic Spaces programme have gotten a lot more research connections than I would have otherwise.
I should mention that I got further contacts with other scholars after becoming also the coordinator of the whole programme in 2010. It is also in this capacity that I have become Series editor of the 5-volume Ashgate Book series. However, I have strived to, as far as possible, to keep the coordinator and researcher roles apart.
8. How has co-operation within the project team, with other Nordic Spaces projects and with other researchers or research teams functioned?
The project has had informal collaboration with Andres Houltz and Sverker Sörlin from the Arctic project during a prolonged (2 months) research stay at KTH. In terms of publications the most substantial collaboration has been with Peter Stadius, in relation to the editing of the volume Communicating the North, as well as with Magdalena Hillström, with whom I co-wrote a chapter for said volume.
I also participated in the cross-project thematic workshop at Voksenåsen, as well as at the Mid Way conference in Vilnius, which were valuable instances for connecting with the rest of the scholars within the programme.
Again, indirectly, in my role as coordinator, I have had further contacts with scholars within the programme.
9. Has the project received complementary funding from sources outside the Nordic Spaces framework?
As per the contract agreement the host HEI, Mid Sweden University, added ca 450 000 SEK to the project in the form of covering un-financed overhead costs. See further below. Minor grants have been awarded along the way strengthening the project.
10. Financial accounts. Are there any major divergences from the original plan? In that case, which ones and why?
On the whole the expenditure has followed the budget rather precisely. I received funding for four years conducting 50% research, and as per the contract, only 9% has gone to paying overhead costs. This was made possible thanks to a supplementary grant from the host HEI, Mid Sweden University, which covered the remaining overhead costs up to the actual cost of 53%. One smaller divergence from the original plan concerns a slightly higher cost under Miscellaneous expenses. These were mainly auxiliary costs for language editing, a need which came up due to the unexpectedly large number of English language publications, as well as some costs related to documentation of source material in digital form. This material will be used in further studies.
11. Other comments.
The time period of the project has been a defining period in my career, both in terms of establishing new scholarly networks, getting sufficient time to do research and achieving merits. In 2012 I was promoted to Associate professor (docent) in history at Mid Sweden University, based on results from the project. In 2013 I was promoted to Adjunct Professor (docent), in the History of Political Discourse and Communication at the Department of History and Ethnology, Jyväskylä University, Finland.
2013-03-19
Jonas Harvard
Distant news and local opinion
Registration No: PDOKJ093/2006
Project title: Distant news and local opinion: How the telegraph affected spatial and temporal horizons in northern Scandinavia, 1850-1880
1. Which was the aim of the project and has it been fulfilled? Has the project plan been adjusted?
The topic of the project concerned the electric telegraph lines constructed across Europe starting in the late 1840's, which profoundly changed conditions for long-distance communication in the region. Focusing on the relationship between time and space, the purpose of the project was to analyse the effects of the electric telegraph on northern Scandinavia through a study of Nordic newspapers. By investigating 1) the motives behind extending telegraph lines to these distant regions, 2) the ideals associated with the technology itself, 3) the representation of time and space in the news and 4) the spatial and temporal references of the concept "public opinion", the study aimed to give a new perspective on the development of communications in this area. It thereby sought to use the spread of technology as a lens through which we may observe societal change, and to produce a transnational history relating the idiosyncrasies of northern Scandinavia to the common developments affecting Europe during the second half of the 19th century
The purpose can be said to have been fulfilled, and different publications have addressed different aspects of the key problem, see further below under heading 3, publications.
2. What are the three most important results of the project?
· Firstly, the project has indicated that no inherently Nordic dimension existed in telegraph news. There was in the late 19th century no need for a temporally integrated Nordic region, no need for a Nordic "now". Although telegrams were sometimes organized according to larger geographical categories, such as "the neighbouring countries", the cost and character of using the telegraph restricted usage of the new technology to particularly time-sensitive information. Only when such information was present, was the telegraph used to convey Nordic or Scandinavian perspectives. One example of this was the Scandinavianist meetings, but even these gave rise to nationally coloured reporting. This also mirrors the infrastructural development, where lines were built following traditional national routes, mostly connecting the larger cities within the respective nations.
· A second key result is the widespread acceptance of the notions of speedier communication related to the electric telegraph in the Nordic region. Although some critical voices were heard, numerous techno-evangelical accounts of the possibilities of the new communication were echoed in the Press across the region. This positive view regarding ideas contrasted clearly to another key result regarding practical use:
· Another key result concerns the practical problems related to the electric telegraph. Although the optimism was strong, in practice the Northern parts of Scandinavia struggled with high maintenance costs and difficulties in operating the network. In some cases harsh winters contributed to these circumstances. The relatively lower population in the North also made it less motivated to build parallel lines, and with single lines being the norm for a longer period, breaks and errors were more difficult to overcome. This asymmetry in some cases meant that the relative difference between the smoothly running networks of larger cities, and the problem-ridden ones of the periphery, increased communicative inequalities across space, rather than levelling out the field.
3. What results have been achieved in terms of publications (including open access publications): monographs, peer review articles, book chapters, conference papers, and others?
For a one-person project, this has been fairly productive. It has produced 4 co-edited books, one peer reviewed journal special issue, 5 journal articles, 12 book chapters and 9 conference papers. (Full list in Appendix A) The most important publication is Communicating the North
4. What academic activities such as seminars, workshops, conference panels and similar have been conducted?
In 2011 I co-organized a session at the Third European Congress of World and Global history, London School of Economics & Political Science, London, which dealt with ideas and reality in the history of the electric telegraph, focusing on the concept of "asymmetry". The session sought to highlight the contrasts between developments in different parts of the world. I contributed a case study based on the Nordic region. The panel consisted of members from Japan, Portugal, Holland and Sweden. I was also part of a panel at the Annual Meeting of The Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study, Chicago, where I presented different ways of looking at the Nordic region, and how different definitions provide different perspectives on history, in particular in the field of communication. For the Communicating the North book, we held two book workshops in Stockholm, with around 10 participants in each. I have also presented the project on a number of informal seminars.
5. What results have been achieved in terms of outreach activities such as newspaper articles, interviews, seminars, lectures, web pages and others?
Early in the project period I maintained a web site for the project, but later the informtion was integrated into the joint Nordic Spaes web site. I have participated in the seminar Var och hur finns Norden, Voksena?sen, Oslo, in 2010, which included an outreach lecture. In September 2011 I participated in the seminar "Att stärka Norden - att uppdatera nordismen" at the Swedish Book- and library fair in Gothenburg together with author Sofi Oksanen and EU minister Birgitta Ohlsson. This seminar was also broadcasted on Kunskapskanalen. I also participated in the public seminar, "Norden as a Historical Region", arranged in Helsinki in November 2011, a collaboration between with the Centre for Nordic Studies, University of Helsinki (CENS), and Nordens Institut i Finland (NIFIN).
I have also done media appearances, including an interview in the Nordens tidning (No 4 2012) as well as press releases related to the programme.
6. Has the project generated any new research problems?
Several new research questions have arisen as a consequence of the project. One sub study concerned ideals related to the technology itself, and the results showed a widespread acceptance of ideals regarding rapid communication across time and space. During the course of the project it became clear that one dimension of these ideals was the democratic possibilities of technologies, that enhanced communication would facilitate a more in-depth public discourse. Although the telegraph itself, with the short and often expensive format for the messages, did not come across as the prime medium for enhanced public, the emergence of a new technology per se inspired a lot of reflection on how technology could contribute to a continuous public debate on relevant issues. This is relevant in regard to recent international publications, in particular a new book on telecommunications (John, Network Nation, 2010) which questions the basic premise that telecommunications had an intrinsic democratic value. Instead, he argues, the combination of business interests and political structures preserved a distinctly elitist perspective on telecommunications for at least 60 years.
This aligns with a broader research field, namely technologies of opinion formation. Two publications emanating from the project have touched upon processes in the mid 19th century, where large-scale opinion manifestations, also on a transnational scale, activated a whole palette of communication technologies in order to set a direction to public opinion. Existing research in the cultural histories of the media have begun looking into the interconnectedness of historical media forms, and the project has also addressed this in terms of a media system. However, an important field which would warrant further inquiry is how actors, individuals and/ or organizations, including public entities, have historically used the totality available media formats and outlets to create favourable conditions for political decisions. In this mix during the 19th century the electric telegraph was an important component, due to its ability to instantly connect audiences, which were scattered geographically.
7. Has the project generated any spin-off effects (for example, new research collaboration, new research ideas and applications)?
Early on I collaborated with Patrik Lundell, Lund, on a book regarding the historical media system. I have also developed closer collaboration with Frank Schipper, Eindhoven Uninversity, Yakup Bektas, Tokyo Institute of Technology, and Ana Paula Silva, Centro Interuniversitário de História das Ciências e da Tecnologia, New University Lisbon as well as other researchers within the Tensions of Europe international network. In editing the Communicating the North volume, I have collaborated with ca 10 scholars in fields such as media- and communication studies and Scandinavian studies, with whom I had no previous collaboration. One topic of the project concerned the concept of public opinion, and in 2010 I participated in a workshop on "Public Opinion, Politics and Press in Europe (1789-1914), at Universidad de Cantabria, Santander, where I collaborated with Prof. Gonzalo de Capellan.
In May 2013 I will participate with a paper based on results in the project at the workshop New Technologies and Cultures of Communication in the 19th and 20th Centuries at the German Historical Institute in Washington. There I expect to make new contacts with American scholars.
The project has thus been a very enriching experience in terms of scholarly networking, and I expect to continue collaborating with many of the people I have gotten to know during the project period. This experience has been especially important for my career since I got a one-person grant, but through the collaboration in the Nordic Spaces programme have gotten a lot more research connections than I would have otherwise.
I should mention that I got further contacts with other scholars after becoming also the coordinator of the whole programme in 2010. It is also in this capacity that I have become Series editor of the 5-volume Ashgate Book series. However, I have strived to, as far as possible, to keep the coordinator and researcher roles apart.
8. How has co-operation within the project team, with other Nordic Spaces projects and with other researchers or research teams functioned?
The project has had informal collaboration with Andres Houltz and Sverker Sörlin from the Arctic project during a prolonged (2 months) research stay at KTH. In terms of publications the most substantial collaboration has been with Peter Stadius, in relation to the editing of the volume Communicating the North, as well as with Magdalena Hillström, with whom I co-wrote a chapter for said volume.
I also participated in the cross-project thematic workshop at Voksenåsen, as well as at the Mid Way conference in Vilnius, which were valuable instances for connecting with the rest of the scholars within the programme.
Again, indirectly, in my role as coordinator, I have had further contacts with scholars within the programme.
9. Has the project received complementary funding from sources outside the Nordic Spaces framework?
As per the contract agreement the host HEI, Mid Sweden University, added ca 450 000 SEK to the project in the form of covering un-financed overhead costs. See further below. Minor grants have been awarded along the way strengthening the project.
10. Financial accounts. Are there any major divergences from the original plan? In that case, which ones and why?
On the whole the expenditure has followed the budget rather precisely. I received funding for four years conducting 50% research, and as per the contract, only 9% has gone to paying overhead costs. This was made possible thanks to a supplementary grant from the host HEI, Mid Sweden University, which covered the remaining overhead costs up to the actual cost of 53%. One smaller divergence from the original plan concerns a slightly higher cost under Miscellaneous expenses. These were mainly auxiliary costs for language editing, a need which came up due to the unexpectedly large number of English language publications, as well as some costs related to documentation of source material in digital form. This material will be used in further studies.
11. Other comments.
The time period of the project has been a defining period in my career, both in terms of establishing new scholarly networks, getting sufficient time to do research and achieving merits. In 2012 I was promoted to Associate professor (docent) in history at Mid Sweden University, based on results from the project. In 2013 I was promoted to Adjunct Professor (docent), in the History of Political Discourse and Communication at the Department of History and Ethnology, Jyväskylä University, Finland.
2013-03-19
Jonas Harvard