New sense of place in the 19th Century news

Abstract

In this article the early historical development of the concept of place in news is analyzed. Most news studies concentrate either on the content of news (or on the 'event') or, if they pay attention to the geography of news, as in the news flow tradition, they concentrate on the states the news originates from. However, it is places, not states where most news comes from. This article examines how sense of place was constructed in electronic foreign news in the mid-19th century. Theoretically, it draws upon the works of phenomenological geographers. In contrast to Meyrowitz's argument of 'no sense of place', it is argued that news also increases sense of place by organizing space, and its readers are able to distinguish between 'there' (where news comes from) and 'here' (where home is). Instead of losing their sense of place, readers are able to become more aware of their sense of place and acquire a new sense of place