70 | Mass Media and Historical Change
to the abdication of the Spanish Viceroy in 1822. Similarly, numerous news-
papers circulating in Colombia and Bolivia stood up for independence and
called for the founding of the Republic of Bolivia in 1825. In Brazil, however,
it appeared that only national independence in 1822 led to a certain increase
in the number of newspapers, which in turn promoted the formation of
republican and monarchist factions (cf. contributions in Wilke 1992–1996).
Foreign media reports influenced the fight for independence. In particular,
the Haitian Slave Revolution (1791–1804), which led to the founding of this
state, became a global media event. Broad reports in North American and
European papers debated slavery in this context.
Restoration and the Revolutions around 1830
In Western Europe this brief media flowering was followed by a lengthy
phase of restoration during the post-1815 era. This was not an immediate
consequence of the Congress of Vienna, since the Viennese federal records
promised only ‘uniform provisions for freedom of the press’ (Wilke 2008:
167). In a similar vein many federal states passed fairly liberal constitutions,
and approximately two-thirds contented themselves with post-censorship. It
was not until 1819 that the Karlsbad Decrees led to a drastic and uniform
restriction of freedom of expression. This epoch was characterised by strict
pre- and post-censorship of printed works of up to 320 pages, as well as sur-
veillance by informers. The whole was accompanied by arrests of journalists
and scholars who had expressed their opinions openly. As a consequence,
newspaper content became less attractive: the number of relevant topics
declined, and even a newspaper as important as the Augsburger Allgemeine
Zeitung took its commentaries mainly from the foreign press (cf. empirically:
Blumenauer 2000). In their place the publication of court news and decrees
increased, and self-censorship blocked rational argument. There was scarcely
any expansion of circulation relative to population growth, despite the fact
that technical developments should have led to an increase. The introduc-
tion of the high-speed press in 1814 initiated the first definitive changes in
printing technology since the days of Gutenberg.
In spite of the repression, censorship was often circumvented. In the
German Federation the most important method was to relocate publishing
houses to those states in which censorship was more laxly applied, like Bavaria
or Saxony. Political articles about foreign countries, especially England and the
United States, were a means of indirectly disseminating ideals. Furthermore,
there was a kind of ‘idea smuggling’, done by means such as secret messages
hidden within texts, poems and books, as well as in songs, and by symbols and
icons on handkerchiefs and medallions (Siemann 1987).