Transnational popular journalism

All journalism by its very nature tends toward the popular and has developed through extensive cross-fertilization, including from its beginnings as an exchange of influences across borders. Political instability and de-centralization facilitated information flow between and across states. Some of the earliest manifestations of this increased traffic were in the crucible of political and military dynamics impacting the Italian states in the late sixteenth century; others were acted out during the religious turmoil of the Reformation and the Thirty Years’ War. As a consequence, the deployment of printing to purvey news established itself in Northwest Europe by the seventeenth century. From the nineteenth century, the most influential exchanges were across the Anglo-American world with its common language and a distinctive meshing of communication with commerce. Once this chapter has set out some definitional parameters, it will briefly outline the development of a transnational popular journalism as defined by Harbers and Broersma by exploring it in three phases: first, generic flow; second, technological facilitators; third, personnel.