Reading Response for 9/6

In my reading this week of The Creation of the Media, I was struck by the persuasive and manipulative communication tactics of the founding fathers, specifically in the example of the Stamp Act crisis in 1765.  As Starr explicitly states, “the Stamp Act politicized the press,” creating a catalyst for opposition against the British (65).  However, my focus is not on the Stamp Act itself but on the way in which key historical figures – John Adams, for example – used the press to further their agendas, specifically in the primary aim to stir revolutionary sentiments in the minds of the general populous.  Starr writes: “As printers during the Stamp Act crisis began to identify their interests with resistance to the British, so patriot leaders came to identify their cause with the printing press” (66-67).  And why might these leaders see a direct correlation between their cause and mass publication?  The answer clearly lies in the fact that patriot leaders could control what was being printed, and in turn, how the publications might influence the general public to support a revolutionary cause.

A key example is in the rhetoric that John Adams used to manipulate the readers’ beliefs about why early settlers came to the new country.  Starr paraphrases and quotes Adams to exemplify this point: "The early settlers, he [Adams] wrote, had come to America in search of liberty and believed that ‘knowledge diffused generally thro’ the whole body of the people’ could preserve their descendants from tyranny […] ‘But none of the means of information are more sacred, or have been cherished with more tenderness and care by the settlers of America, than the Press.  Care has been taken, that the art of printing should be encouraged, and that it should be easy and cheap and safe for any person to communicate his thoughts to the public'" (67).  While this is certainly a persuasive point, did the early settlers in fact come to the new country for liberty and did they always promote the freedom of expressing and encouraging all printing and all thoughts in the public sphere?  While this ideology would support the revolutionary cause, it does not in fact truly reflect the laws and customs in the early colonial settlements; thus, it is an inadequate representation of communication in the early seventeenth century.

So, what was the role of printing and communication during the early colonial years?  The Puritan settlement in Massachusetts promoted education – for white males, of course – and communication, only so long as it was in concordance with the Puritan belief system and in alignment with the ideology of the local ministers and magistrates.  For, “although not all differences of opinion were suppressed, dissenters were frequently banished from the colony” and “criticism of officials or the governments in New England (as in the southern colonies) frequently met with severe penalties, including ‘bodily correction’” (51).  Hmmm, this does not sound quite as pleasant as Adams’ interpretation – or elaboration, shall we say – of the actual role of the press and communication in the first half of the seventeenth century.  Moreover, the press was limited to an even more extreme degree in the Chesapeake colony, as the leaders sought to control the press in an attempt to maintain order and control over commerce, and “as a result of deliberate policy, Virginia continued without any press through the first three decades of the eighteenth century” (53).  And, while you may be thinking – hoping even – that there was freedom of the press in the Middle Colonies and that this was where Adams’ drew his information, you are sadly mistaken. Though on into the late seventeenth century “the Quakers initially suffocated printing” and though two presses later developed, they only printed safe information, which basically means bland and uncontroversial facts (54).  So, what “early settlers” did Adams reference when he strove to convince his readership that “none of the means of information are more sacred, or have been cherished with more tenderness and care by the settlers of America, than the Press” (67)?  It most certainly seems that this was not an accurate or reliable statement by Adams, given the historical accounts that Starr provides and that I have noted earlier in this paragraph.  Did Adams, perhaps, provide exaggeration and embellishment in order to manipulate his readership by using “historical precedence?”  All accounts lead to one answer – yes.

Why would Adams manipulate the truth about the press and early mass communication?  The answer lies in the fact that he had an agenda to produce to the mass public through the press.  Whereas the early leaders were concerned with differing opinions on the press, Adams saw the press as an opportunity to promote his agenda.  And, if he could convince readers that the early settlers aligned liberty and freedom of communication through the press in the highest regards, then he would be more successful in convincing his readers of aligning themselves with the revolutionary mindset, just as he suggested their forefathers had done.  Adams realized that the press was crucial in getting the mass population on board with reacting against the Stamp Act and in turn, against the British.  If readers could associate the freedom of the press with the reasons that their forefathers left England in the first place, then it would provide a more solid foundation for reacting against the British in the mid-eighteenth century.  True historical evidence was not necessary in serving Adams’ point; rather, his purpose was served by invoking the early settlers to serve his revolutionary purpose.

If we remotely think that the press is without an agenda – in the past or present – then we are naïve and are no different to the readers that Adams sought to reach.  Surely Adams’ readers would have realized that this was, in fact, not an accurate account of their forefathers; yet, we must be mindful of how quickly our current generations forget the past, and we even have many avenues of mass communication available at a moments notice, a sharp difference from the seventeenth century settlers.  As seen in the example with Adams and in relation to current readers, people often read with a willingness to believe the author rather than crucially research and interpret the facts.  Adams’ message served a purpose and there is now true freedom of the press, but with that freedom comes a “freeness” to promote, to twist, to manipulate history into serving a purpose that aligns with a particular position.  This is not new territory, but at what point will readers learn from the blindness of the past?