This seminar will consider the role of the press and print culture in politics during the Hanoverian period looking at issues such as the development of 'public opinion', circulation and readerships, the varieties of print culture and restrictions on the press and other media.

Key Texts

• James Bradley, 'Parliament, print culture and petitioning', Parliamentary History, 26 (2007)
• Jason Peacey, 'The print culture of parliament, 1600-1800', Parliamentary History, 26 (2007)
• Hannah Barker, Newspapers, politics and English society; Newspapers, politics and public opinion; and with Simon Burrows, Press, politics and the public sphere
• Karl Schweizer, 'Newspapers politics and public opinion in the later Hanoverian era', Parliamentary History, 26 (2007)
• E.Hellmuth, ‘The palladium of all other English liberties: reflections on the liberty of the press in England during the 1760s and 1770s’ in Hellmuth (ed.), The Transformation of Political Culture
• R. Kropf, ‘Libel and Satire in the Eighteenth Century’, Eighteenth Century Studies, 1975
• Tedra Osell, ‘Tatling women in the public sphere’, Eighteenth Century Studies, 2005

Key Sources

• The Times
• Burney Collection of 17th and 18th century newspapers
• British Library Collection of Nineteenth-century newspapers
• Spectator/Tatler (1711-14)
• John Johnson Collection of Early Ephemera
• Bodleian Collection of broadside ballads 
• British Museum collection of prints and drawings