"The Talk of the Towne": News, Crime and the Public Sphere in Seventeenth-Century London

Lena Liapi

doi:10.1080/14780038.2017.1375703

"The Talk of the Towne": News, Crime and the Public Sphere in Seventeenth-Century London

Lena Liapi

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Abstract

This article reconsiders ideas of the public sphere in the seventeenth century, by focusing on how public opinion is produced in the movement of information between media and between receivers. It contends that the scholarly preoccupation with a public sphere viewed exclusively in terms of politics obscures the fact that contemporaries did not distinguish between politics and subjects such as crime in their newsgathering. Examining the case study of James Turner, a burglar in the 1660s who became a cause celebre in London and beyond, this article shows how crime news were eagerly exchanged, informing discussions and constructing public opinion.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	549-564
Number of pages	16
Journal	Cultural and Social History
Volume	14
Issue number	5
Early online date	18 Sep 2017
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/14780038.2017.1375703
Publication status	Published - 2017

Keywords

Public Sphere
Print Culture
Public Opinion
London
Early Modern
Crime
News Culture

Access to Document

10.1080/14780038.2017.1375703Licence: Unspecified

Accepted Manuscript
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Cultural and Social History on 18 Sep 2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14780038.2017.1375703
Accepted author manuscript, 669 KBLicence: Unspecified

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Cite this

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title = "{"}The Talk of the Towne{"}: News, Crime and the Public Sphere in Seventeenth-Century London",

abstract = "This article reconsiders ideas of the public sphere in the seventeenth century, by focusing on how public opinion is produced in the movement of information between media and between receivers. It contends that the scholarly preoccupation with a public sphere viewed exclusively in terms of politics obscures the fact that contemporaries did not distinguish between politics and subjects such as crime in their newsgathering. Examining the case study of James Turner, a burglar in the 1660s who became a cause celebre in London and beyond, this article shows how crime news were eagerly exchanged, informing discussions and constructing public opinion.",

keywords = "Public Sphere, Print Culture, Public Opinion, London, Early Modern, Crime, News Culture",

author = "Lena Liapi",

note = "I would like to thank Mark Jenner, Helen Smith, Simon Ditchfield, Lucy Sackville, Jim Sharpe, Bill Naphy, and Antonis Liapis for reading versions of this article. I would also like to thank those who listened to versions of this at conferences and provided useful comments; Ioanna Iordanou deserves a special mention here. ",

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KW - Public Opinion

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KW - Early Modern

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