News: The Pursuit of Immediacy

Abstract

Underpinning the Victorian public sphere was a network characterized by an intense pursuit of immediacy. By creating an abstract and ‘empty’ space where the public might observe and participate in ongoing events on a societal scale, this network served to establish public opinion as a source of political legitimacy. The telegraph, the development of professional journalistic skill sets, and the extraction of colonial natural resources made it possible to extend the news network beyond regional and national borders. The uniform typographical ‘form of news’ characterizing Victorian daily newspapers was an effect of specific technological adjustments needed to move newsworthy events across vast distances without interruption or distortion. In this way, the news network mediated a secular time independent of motion.