40 | Mass Media and Historical Change
circulated in Europe, such as Aviso (advertisements), Relationen (‘accounts’),
Gazette, Nouvelle, Courante, Mercurius, and Post or Newsbooks, the latter being
referred to in England under the collective term of ‘pamphlets’ (Raymond
2003: 101). Another reason why the seventeenth century newspaper attracted
little interest might have been that it was only one medium of many in the
press sector. Pamphlets continued to predominate and interacted with news-
papers intertextually as well as with regard to production and reception until
the eighteenth century (Bellingradt 2011). The interplay of oral, literal and
typographic information provided an economically grounded media system,
which shaped the formation of opinions in the seventeenth century (Scholz
Williams and Layfer 2008; Arndt and Körber 2010).
The specific character and novelty of the newspaper were achieved through
the fusion of four criteria attributed to older types of media: its periodicity,
its quality of being up-to-date, universality of content, and publicity, i.e.
accessibility for everyone (such is the definition of the newspaper since Otto
Groth (1948: 339f.). Similar to Gutenberg’s invention, it tied in with exist-
ing communication techniques. Thus some media scientists regard ‘human
media’ (e.g. singers or preachers) as important precursors of the newspaper, as
they disseminated news periodically and promptly (Faulstich 1998: 212–14,
224). More important for the establishment of periodical papers, however, was
the postal system, whose primary form of communication, namely the letter,
and distribution logistics served as central requirements (Behringer 2003:
412–17). The printed press would thus, from the fourteenth century, draw
upon handwritten ‘newspapers’ – letters written by correspondents and used
for spreading (chiefly economic) news within a well-established network in
Western Europe and the Middle East (Gravesteijn, in North 1995: 63–66). By
this means, merchants, sovereigns and city councillors were able to gather rel-
evant economic and political information on a regular basis. Particularly well
known are the Fugger-Zeitungen from the sixteenth century, since they have
been exceptionally well preserved. Another forerunner were the single-page
leaflets, which were also referred to as Neue Zeitungen due to the fact that
they tended to include the latest news. The so-called Messrelationen, which
comprised pieces of news on around one hundred pages, usually semi-an-
nually, and were sold at fairs, also advanced the development of periodicity
since the 1580s (Rousseaux 2004). As with book printing, it was a case of
smooth transition. Handwritten newspapers survived until well into the eigh-
teenth century, particularly in rigid, absolutist systems such as France and the
Habsburg Monarchy (Popkin 2005: 24).
This transition can be clearly demonstrated by the example of the Stras-
bourg printer Johann Carolus (1575–1634), who issued the first newspaper
known to us today. Initially, Carolus duplicated handwritten notices. After
acquiring a printing press and founding one of the major printing houses on