48 | Mass Media and Historical Change
community proven to have existed was in Kitzingen in 1614, and their paper
was shared by between twelve and twenty-one dignitaries following a set order
of rotation (Welke, in Dann 1981: 36). In this respect the newspaper can be
considered a mass medium even in the seventeenth century, notwithstanding
the fact that it was not until the eighteenth century that the periodical press
experienced a much stronger expansion.
The Newspaper and Periodical Market in the Eighteenth Century
At first glance, newspapers did not change significantly in the eighteenth
century. Foreign news reports and articles on military topics continued to
dominate the newspaper landscape, while local and rational-critical commen-
tary remained scarce. Therefore the line between the Baroque Era and the Era
of Enlightenment should not be drawn too sharply in media history (Fischer
et al. 1999: 13; Wilke 2008: 82). Some changes nevertheless occurred in the
newspaper market that are particularly noteworthy from an international per-
spective.
Newspaper circulation shot up on an international level in the eighteenth
century, even though hardly any innovations had occurred in printing technol-
ogy. In the second half of the eighteenth century, the total number of publica-
tions doubled in the German territories, reaching an average of approximately
600, while the number of newspapers climbed to between 200 and 250,
resulting in over 300,000 copies per week (see Welke 1977: 78f.). Circulation
figures were similarly high in England, where the numbers of newspapers and
print runs had spiralled rapidly since the introduction of widespread press
freedom in 1695. Thanks to the use of revenue stamps, reliable figures are on
record. In 1750, 9.4 million stamps were disbursed (approximately 180,000
per week), and in 1800 the number reached 16.4 million (around 315,000 per
week). In addition, unauthorised copies as well as the illegal Unstamped Press
were available (Barker 2000: 30). In France, weekly circulation rose to at least
44,000 in the 1770s, with the Gazette de France reaching its peak in the 1750s
with approximately 15,000 copies and the few remaining papers accounting
for a circulation figure of at least several thousand (Censer 1994: 215). Again,
wars and conflicts were chiefly responsible for the sudden international rise in
newspaper copies, for example the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), the Amer-
ican War of Independence and the French Revolution. Newspapers thus con-
tributed markedly to the development of national and international spheres of
communication in the eighteenth century.
The framework conditions of the international press also changed in the
eighteenth century. Generally, censorship shifted from religious to political