Bernd Sösemann. Kommunikation und Medien in Preußen vom 16. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2002. 474 S. (gebunden), ISBN 978-3-515-08129-0.
Reviewed by Anthony J. Steinhoff (Department of History, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga)
Published on H-German (December, 2003)
For over forty years now, Juergen Habermas' The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Strukturwandel der Oeffentlichkeit: Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der buergerlichen Gesellschaft) has powerfully shaped our thinking about the "public sphere" (Oeffentlichkeit) and its role in the emergence of modern, democratic societies. His argument that communicative action helped constitute the public sphere, for example, has led to valuable historical research into such topics as the press and the publishing business, the organization and activities of voluntary societies, and the social and technical networks that extended interpersonal links across space and maintained them over time. In short, Habermas has become a sort of spiritual father to the emerging discipline of media and communications history, as the present volume makes clear.
With Kommunikation und Medien in Preussen vom 16. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert, Bernd Soesemann brings together essays that were first presented in 1999 and 2000 at conferences organized by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft zur preussischen Geschichte on the topic of "Communication and Association in Prussia." He presents these essays as examples of a new history of public communication, one that that is more interdisciplinary, more sophisticated methodologically, and better attuned to the interplay among and collective impact of different media types. In addition, he contends, the essays promise to address significant lacunae in the history of Prussia as it evolved from a minor German state to the dominant power in a united Germany.
Soesemann uses the introduction to sketch out the current state of historical communications studies and articulate a vision for their future development. He deliberately refuses to discuss the volume's contributions. Instead, he explains the book's temporal scope (its emphasis on the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries) and surveys the evolution of German and Prussian understandings of media and Oeffentlichkeit between 1650 and 1850. Thereafter follow the book's twenty-two essays, organized into three large, roughly chronological groups: 1600-1750, 1750-1815, and 1815-1870.
The first two essays focus on the use of "private" and "public" in the early modern period. Ernst Opgenoorth argues that while we can use the term "public," we should not equate it with "official" (staatlich). Instead, "public" should be defined in terms of communications systems and accessibility to them, admitting that the "public sphere" may be open only to certain groups of people because of the nature of the topic or the medium of discursive exchange. Esther-Beate Koerber concludes from her analysis of the publishing trade in early-seventeenth-century Koenigsberg that three such "partial publics" existed, which were oriented around power, learning (Bildung), and information. Already in the sixteenth century, thus, (and not in the seventeenth, as Habermas contends) Prussian intellectuals debated in print questions like the proper use of state authority. Moreover, they framed these questions in legal-political and no longer in religious-theological terms. In the same vein, Juergen Wilke demonstrates newspapers' limited reach in sixteenth- and eighteenth-century Brandenburg-Prussia. Not only were relatively few newspapers published in the Prussian lands, but those papers that did appear reported almost exclusively on events outside of German Europe. Lastly, Bernd Soesemann uses an analysis of Friedrich III's coronation as King of Prussia in 1703 to argue that such state ceremonies are really a type of media. He shows clearly how the coronation ceremony communicated powerful ideas about kingship and public authority and how it created a sense of the "public." Yet, Soesemann's own analysis suggests that the ceremony was not itself a type of communications medium, but rather a media event, which Friedrich carefully prepared, managed, and exploited long after the fact.
Gerd Kleinheyer's notes about censorship move the volume into the eighteenth century. This largely synthetic piece shows that only with the French Revolution did censorship acquire a more political orientation and begin to be regarded as impinging on civil rights (instead of just business interests). It is followed by a series of inquiries into specific communications media, primarily in the second half of the eighteenth century. Drawing on a study of the influential cameralist and physiocrat Theodor Schmalz, Hans-Christof Kraus urges that we recognize formal academic writing's ability to shape public opinion. Hermann Haarmann then provides a cursory look at the theater as a type of Oeffentlichkeit, devoting most of his attention to the history of Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm. Next, Rudolf Stoeber shows that for most of the eighteenth century the public press coexisted peacefully with the state, even depended on it (in contrast to Habermas' model of opposition). Indeed, he contends, economic competition threatened publishers much more than state censorship policies ever did. Volker Bauer takes as his subject the calendar, until the twentieth century the most widely produced and disseminated periodical in Germany, which caused it to be brought under the Prussian state's regulation and control. Uwe Puschner demonstrates how the reading society (Lesegesellschaft), which prospered well into the nineteenth century, spread ideas and information (especially about the Enlightenment and Reform) among the literate public. Finally, Holger Boening examines the Intelligenzblaetter, which carried official announcements and public notices of all sorts. Particularly in their Prussian version, he avers, these papers functioned as a public space largely shaped and developed by state officials.
The next set of essays concentrates on the relationship between communication strategies and public opinion, above all in the Reform Era. Joerg Requate demonstrates that the French Revolution marked the period when newspapers began to develop and regularly use networks of correspondents, thereby enabling them to confirm their stories and make a clearer distinction between "news" and "rumor." Relying on an analysis of the publications, authors, and themes in the post-1806 discourse on political reform, Ludger Herrmann argues that these discussions were actually quite constructive; they represented the first real example of earnest and multilateral political debate in Prussia. Next Karen Hagemann reveals that the Prussian state's inability to maintain censorship rules during this period permitted an explosive growth in printed material: publications, newspapers and pamphlets, brochures and songs. This proliferation of paper, in turn, greatly promoted the political mobilization of Germans (as Germans) against Napoleon during the 1813-15 Wars of Liberation. Finally, Andreas Hofmeister documents how Prussian officials (notably August von Hardenberg) used the press to pursue political ends at odds with stated policy, above all by "leaking" stories and information to trusted newspaper contacts.
Ursula Fuhrich-Grubert's study of the family and professional network of the Prussian Superior President Theodor von Schoen, leads us into the Vormaerz. This is a nice piece of social history, but it contributes very little to any of the book's main themes. By contrast, Magdalena Niedzielska ably shows how associational life in West Prussia promoted the emergence of political consciousness there prior to 1848. This ensued not only from the discussion of political ideas, but even more so from the association's by-laws, which fostered a strong sense of group identity. The next three essays explore the Prussian press between 1848 and 1871. Juergen Froehlich reveals that after 1848, Prussia relaxed its press legislation not because of liberal support for a free press, but because conservatives realized it was easier to manage than repress newspapers. Ursula E. Koch's largely expository paper looks at Berlin's satirical papers, especially the Kladderadatsch, and their role in shaping public opinion and communicating the spirit of the times (Zeitgeist). In this context, Grzegorz Kucharczyk offers a reappraisal of the Prussian censor. The job was poorly defined and paid, which made the work difficult and burdensome. In short, Kucharczyk concludes, the censor was much more the victim of the system than its "point man." The volume then closes with two contributions that discuss radio and film in the Weimar Republic (Wilhelm Kreutz) and provide preliminary press statistics for seventeenth- and nineteenth-century Prussia (Rudolf Stoeber).
Kommunikation und Medien in Preussen advances our historical understanding in several helpful ways. First, its essays bring to light a wealth of factual information on communication practices in Prussia from the early modern period to the late nineteenth century. Consequently, the volume serves as a useful reference for scholars interested in Prussian and, more generally, German media history. The book also extends the discussion of Habermas' ideas on the constitution of the public sphere in important directions. Several authors emphasize, for example, that the process of creating a "public" was well underway as the eighteenth century began (Opgenoorth, Koerber, Wilike, Soesemann). They also argue that the very practice of press regulation (through privilege, monopoly, and censorship) meant that the state was intimately engaged in creating (and shaping) this public sphere (see Stoeber in particular). As Hofmeister and Froehlich brilliantly point out, nineteenth-century Prussian officials deliberately used the press for "public relations" purposes. In addition, Puschner's and Niedzielska's essays are welcome additions to the literature on Prussian associational life. Hermann's and especially Hagemann's pieces also shed valuable new light on the discourses of reform and nationalism during the Napoleonic era in Prussia.
Yet, the book has several notable shortcomings. Like many collections based on conference proceedings, the articles vary widely in quality. It is also not always clear why some of the essays were included, for they fall within neither the volume's topical nor its temporal scope (Fuhrich-Grubert, Kreutz). This last remark points to a more critical problem for which the editor is primarily responsible: this book fails to come together as a whole. The book really needs a clearer conceptual focus. Is it about the media? About communication technologies? Or is it really about the public sphere? All three topics are present here, but Soesemann never tells the reader how they relate to one another and add up to a larger whole. For example, if the focus is on media and public communication, as the title suggests, then why does the volume include essays on associational life? Nor are the terms "media" and "communication" given satisfactory definition. Rather, they are often used so elastically (Soesemann's own piece on the coronation ceremony is a prime example) that they lose their analytical utility. The cohesiveness of the volume would also have been strengthened by allowing the essays to "talk to each other" more. In reading through the contributions, it is clear that they explore a fair amount of common ground, but this is never made explicit, either in the text of the essays or in Soesemann's introduction.
On balance, this book is exactly what Soesemann advertised: a first step towards a richer, and more interdisciplinary historical understanding of communication and the media in Germany. Its organizational problems notwithstanding, the volume contains much that will interest scholars of both early modern and modern German Europe.
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Citation:
Anthony J. Steinhoff. Review of Sösemann, Bernd, Kommunikation und Medien in Preußen vom 16. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert.
H-German, H-Net Reviews.
December, 2003.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=8484
Copyright © 2003 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For any other proposed use, contact the Reviews editorial staff at hbooks@mail.h-net.org.