How newspapers replaced social networks where you could read the king and what women's magazines wrote about

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Media is such a constant part of our life that it seems that it has always been so. At least it began as soon as the printing press was invented. This illusion is well seen in modern attempts to write a historical love story, where the girls of the age of the Musketeers enthusiastically read fashion magazines. In fact, any press had to be invented first.

The newspaper must be read from the last page

Although one can often come across the assertion that the first regularly published printed newspaper was published in France (by the way, just at the time of the Musketeers), alas - Europeans really need to modestly step aside when it comes to something that is the world's first centralized or universal because China is ahead of Europe in many ways on the timeline. So it happened with the newspapers the same way.

"Stolichny Vestnik" (which was then quietly produced for centuries) was released in 911 and it was mandatory for a certain circle of people to buy it. In addition to news, emperor's decrees were printed there. Although the newspaper was not the only way to find out about these decrees, the very insufficiently eager desire to run and buy a piece of paper with these beautiful texts could be seen as free-thinking and some kind of opportunism.

Since the Chinese wrote from right to left (and, by the way, in columns, not lines), readers always started from the last page of the newspaper and not at all because the anecdotes were more interesting to them - on the contrary, it was on the last page that the editorial was located. The pages of each issue were cut out completely on the board, and not typed, as in Western printing houses, from ready-made dies. Firstly, the required number of dies was difficult to make - after all, the text used not letters, but hieroglyphs. Secondly, the Chinese had a peculiar cult of hard work and unnecessary attempts to make their life and work easier were not welcomed.

After a few prints, the boards began to leave indistinct hieroglyphs, and the next board had to be cut out. But the newspaper with indistinct hieroglyphs still went into circulation: for the sake of the holy decrees of the emperor, it was assumed, readers could try to make out what was written in general outlines. By the way, the Chinese got acquainted with the concept of commercial ads only when they saw English newspapers in the nineteenth century - and immediately applied it. Prior to that, Vestnik had been published without advertising.

As for the first European newspaper, it was indeed the French La Gazette, named after the printed newsletters that were sold in Venice for a gazette ("kopeck") apiece. These leaflets cannot be considered a real press - they did not have a frequency and a name. Printing houses simply made money by issuing separate sheets for each news item (as well as with scary stories and satirical verses). Such separate sheets as a genre persisted for a very long time - they were sold (instead of, for example, more expensive books to make) even on the streets of Victorian London.

Newspaper instead of social media

Although our ancestors did not have the Internet and smartphones, they found ways to exchange funny pictures and mutual insults. Caricatures were used as memes (which, at a time when newspaper circulations were much less than the attendance of modern websites, were hotly discussed, remembered and eventually fit into the cultural code), and to exchange opinions about each other and open discussions could be used as essays (usually in polemics about art, society, and politics) and a free classifieds section.

In one issue, for example, Madame Odin hinted with a short announcement that Madame Two looked like a courtesan in manners, and in the next, Madame Two placed an advertisement in which she spoke unflatteringly about Madame Odin's appearance and intelligence. Surprisingly, for such open dialogues in Russia, for example, free newspapers with ads were used in the nineties. In addition, advertisements in newspapers and magazines were used for dating. Over time, there were separate headings for such ads and even publications entirely devoted only to dating. In general, newspapers were social media on paper.

Men used to poke their heads into the newspaper in order to isolate themselves from the outside space and other people, including their household (and including family lunches, breakfasts and dinners). It was not comme il faut for a woman to bump into the newspaper, so they either had to wait for the invention of mobile phones, or occupy their eyes (and hands) with some knitting.

La Gazette was the first newspaper to publish paid commercial ads. But with polemics with her, one had to be careful - after all, some of the articles were written there personally by the king and his minister, Cardinal Richelieu. They were not very fond of controversy. The first edition for women (which, however, was usually read at home and not at the dinner table) was the French Mercure Galant, although the traditions of women's gloss were set by its English counterpart Lady's Mercury, founded a little later - in the nineties of the seventeenth century. They discussed fashion, makeup, gossip and flirting rules.

Journal as an engine of progress

A fundamentally new type of women's magazines appeared about a hundred years later: in such publications as "Cabinet of Aspazia" (Russia) or "The Pharos" (Britain), the issue of women's rights was discussed, informative articles were published (including biographies of great women), which were supposed to compensate for the peculiarities of women's education, and articles on fashion at the same time told about politics - especially since one was closely connected at that time with the other.

Smart women's magazines have become such a serious competitor to mainstream fashion and gossip magazines that they had to figure out how to expand their format - and they did it with articles devoted to practical advice, such as handicrafts, cooking and home economics. In fact, these two formats of women's magazines still exist today.

The first children's magazine was published at the end of the eighteenth century with the aim of changing the situation in pedagogy, introducing the best practices of the time. It was intended for the joint reading of the teacher and students, that is, in fact, it was a teaching aid. It was the "Leipzig weekly leaflet", and virtually any children's magazines were made and are doing on its model. It was distinguished by its rich illustration (with an abundance of children's characters) and contained fables, rhymes, riddles, fairy tales, small plays, chess puzzles and, of course, instructive and informative articles.

In Russia of the nineteenth century, the children's press was actively undertook to develop, and at the same time it went in two ways. Some publishers tried to create the most isolated and carefree world of childhood, in which there was nothing but cute and funny stories and simple entertainment, others believed that children should be given food for thought, and focused on educational articles and … political news. In fact, both traditions of publishing children's magazines continued in the USSR. The first Soviet children's magazine was a propaganda publication for pioneers "Northern Lights", but it was, rather, an exception - later editions were either of a thematic cognitive nature, like "Young Naturalist" and "Young Technician", or general entertainment, like "Funny Pictures "And" Chizha ".

Speaking of naturalists, the first scientific journal, the Journal des sçavans, began to be published in the second half of the seventeenth century in France. He was one of those who introduced into the custom of printing obituaries of famous people. After reading the French magazine, two months later the British began to publish an analogue - "Philosophical Works of the Royal Society." This magazine has been published without interruption until our time and continues to be published now. Despite the name, it is dedicated to literally all sciences.

And now some publications are intriguing. For Korean Fashionistas Only: Behind the Cover of a Popular DPRK Glossy Magazine.