In colonial America, most printers were also publishers. They would produce broadsheets or pamphlets, and these became the way news traveled throughout the colonies. They were opinionated and local -- and often challenged authority. And it wasn't hard to publish. Today, America's political "bloggers" are similarly opinionated and local -- or topically specific. And they are beginning to have a profound impact on politcs and public policy, just as the pamphleteers of the 1700s and early 1800s. (CLICK TO DOWNLOAD MP3 AUDIO (15MB/30 MINS)
What lessons can today's bloggers learn from their pamphleteer brethren? Two scholars discussed the question in a Jan. 26, 2006 seminar at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, North Adams, Mass. It was pamphleteers and newspapers which took participatory democracy away from the aristocracy in colonial America and enabled a mass-market discussion, according to Norman Sims, a journalism professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Now it's possible that blogs are serving a similar role -- opening up the political "sphere", says Sims. Sims, principal investigator of The Media Giraffe Project at UMass. He's an expert on "literary journalism" who has studied the pamphleteer style of writing for courses and papers. Sims was joined by Tyler Resch, librarian at The Bennington Museum, former editor of The Bennington Banner, prolific author of Berkshire and Bennington county historical papers, and an expert on the imprisonment of 18th-century Vermont pamphleteer Anthony Haswell for violation of the Sedition Act. The session was part of the seminar: "The Future of Journalism," offered at MCLA this semester in part with support from the Hardman Foundation. The seminar organizer is Bill Densmore at wdensmor@mcla.edu, or 413-458-8001.
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