Launching Experiencing Political Texts

The way we consume news and political information is changing. A survey of 50,000 people in 2016 concluded that social media had taken over from television as the main source of news for people aged 18-24 and another published just a couple of weeks ago came to the same conclusion regarding 11-16 year olds. Similarly, research conducted in 2019 found that under 35s tend to use their smartphone (rather than print media, radio, television, or computer) to access the news, and that those in the 18-24 category rely on social media rather than news apps for their political information. While the majority of those asked in all age groups still tend to consume news in the form of written text, there is a growing appetite (especially among younger groups) for visual content including video and graphic storytelling.

This is thought to be an image of Major John Cartwright by Henry Fuseli, c. 1779. National Portrait Gallery NPG 4538. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence. Cartwright was a founder member of the Society for Constitutional Information and a driving force behind its establishment.

Innovation in the formats in which political information is presented to - and consumed by the public - is not a new phenomenon. Early modern Britain was a period of experimentation in this regard. The Society for Constitutional Information, established in April 1780, was concerned precisely with making political information accessible to new audiences. The organisation sought to diffuse knowledge of the British constitution 'throughout the realm', 'through every village and hamlet' even 'into the humble dwelling of the cottager' (An Address to the Public, from the Society for Constitutional Information. London 1780, p. 1). To this end they printed and disseminated for free a variety of works on British institutions and politics. Moreover, from the outset the members paid particular attention to the format in which their works were printed, declaring explicitly:

That Small Pica be the Type to be used in the Pamphlets and Tracts to be printed by

the Society; that Duodecimo be the Size of the Page; and that Demy Paper not

exceeding Thirteen Shillings and Six Pence a Ream, be employed in the several

Works to be printed. (The National Archives: TS 11/1133).

The title page and frontispiece image of Eikon Basilike (1649). Reproduced, with permission, from the copy held in Special Collections at the Robinson Library, Newcastle. Kieper (K942.062 CHA). This is a good example of an early modern text that used literary techniques and the materiality of the text (including the interaction of text and image) to convey its message.

Like tech companies today, members of the Society knew that making key political information easily accessible was key and that the medium in which it was delivered was as important as the message itself. This was true of early modern authors more generally. They used an array of literary strategies to entice readers in, exploited the material form of the works they produced, and paid attention to their circulation. One reason they did so was that they were concerned not merely to inform their readers but to encourage them to think about and engage with the issues under discussion - and even to stimulate them into action. The Society for Constitutional Information disseminated political texts in order to increase the number of people campaigning for the reform of political institutions. By educating British people on the constitution they hoped to stimulate them to take political action; to demand their rights and bring about a transformation of what they saw as an outdated and corrupt political system.

The 'Experiencing Political Texts' project that launches on 3 July seeks to explore this crucial relationship between medium and message in greater depth. By examining the methods used by early modern political authors to engage their audiences, and analysing how effective they were at achieving their ends, we hope to draw various conclusions. In the first place we will have a better understanding of how to read those texts - and how best to present them to modern audiences - whether via library catalogues or in modern editions. In addition, we will also advance our thinking on how best to disseminate political information and to stimulate calls to action in the twenty-first century - and even how to generate an engaged and active citizenry.

At the heart of the project will be a network comprising various groups. In the first place there will be humanities scholars from a range of disciplines with expertise in complementary approaches and skills. We will also involve library and archive professionals with experience of presenting early modern political texts to wider audiences, and digital humanities experts and software developers with the technical skills to think about digital representations. Finally we hope to recruit citizens of Newcastle and the surrounding area with a particular interest in the dissemination of political ideas and information.

Members of these different constituencies will gather together for three workshops. The first, to be held in Newcastle on 7th and 8th September 2022, will focus on the use of genre and form in early modern political texts and the ways in which authors sought to stimulate active political engagement by sparking their readers' imagination or provoking debate. The second, which will take place in York in early 2023, will explore the materiality of early modern texts, the other material objects associated with them, and the connections between these and the practical culture of political clubs. The final workshop, scheduled for September 2023 in Newcastle, will explore how the literary and material dimensions of early modern political texts can be effectively presented to audiences via library catalogues, exhibitions, and editions, as well as the issues raised by digital presentation.

Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society where the Reading Group will meet. Image Rachel Hammersley.

Also central to the project will be a monthly reading group that will meet at the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society on the second Tuesday of each month from October 2022 through to June 2023. Members of the group will read and discuss short extracts from key early modern political texts, as well as being encouraged to reflect on their own engagement with and consumption of political information. Discussions will be recorded through visual live scribing providing the opportunity to track changes in thought among the group and a means by which the ideas they explore can feed directly into other elements of the project - including the workshops and exhibitions.

The National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, where one of the exhibitions relating to the project will be held. Image Rachel Hammersley.

The project will culminate with two public exhibitions, one at Newcastle University's Robinson Library and the other at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh, at which our key findings will be presented and explored. The exhibitions will focus on comparing original print editions of early modern political texts with modern print and digital versions to encourage thinking around the relative merits of different forms and how the manner in which we receive our political information impacts on our understanding and interpretation of that information. Workshops accompanying the exhibition at the National Library of Scotland will explore the implications of our findings for different groups such as activists or school children.

Of course it is not simply a case of disseminating political information in ways that are appealing and accessible to audiences. The medium also shapes the content. The report on the 2016 study cited above notes the ways in which social media can manipulate the news offering. Stories may be one-sided, biased, or even fake, and targeted to individual readers' existing interests and opinions. Despite this, in the most recent survey, 47% of the 11-16 year olds asked, said that they trust the news they see on social media and that they have more faith in social influencers than politicians to tell them the truth about the news. Moreover, today on social media political information is generally consumed in paragraph-sized chunks or even just headlines - with most readers not digging more deeply to understand the full story. There is, perhaps, a danger that our modern methods of political communication far from generating engaged and active citizens produce passive news consumers instead.

Experiencing Political Texts 1: Endings and Beginnings

While it is January that is named after a god who looks both forwards and backwards, for those of us working in educational establishments in the UK, the early autumn is also a good time for simultaneous reflection on the past and forward planning. In this spirit, this month's blogpost will look back to a project I have recently completed and offer a preview of a new project I am planning.

On 25 September Republicanism: An Introduction was published by Polity Press. As we approach the final month of the Presidential election campaign in a country that has long claimed to exemplify republican ideals, the United States, the questions: what is republican government? and what is required in order for it to function effectively? are more pertinent than ever. As I explain in my book, the older definition of a republic was a system in which government operated in the interests of the common or public good. The violent clashes that have taken place recently between Black Lives Matter protestors and Trump supporters throw doubt on any claim that there is a single, shared understanding of the common good in the US today. Of course, in the now more commonplace definition of republican government as the antonym of monarchy, it may seem that the US is unquestionably a republic, but can this judgement survive in the face of rule by a billionaire who wields far greater powers than any sitting monarch in the world and who gifts members of his own family positions of high office?

I explore these definitions more fully in a blogpost I have written for Polity Press. The book takes a chronological approach, starting with the ancient ideas and practices that formed the basis of later republican theories, before examining how those theories developed and were put into action in the context of the Renaissance, early modern Europe and the Enlightenment, and the English, American and French Revolutions. It then considers the ways in which republican ideas have been adopted by new groups, and adapted to new ends in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Overall, the book argues that republicanism is a dynamic, living language, the survival of which is predicated on its adaptability, and which retains the potential to offer answers to the pressing political issues of the twenty-first century.

Last month's blogpost on this site, which focused on the material culture of republican rule, was the last in a series about myths of republican government, exploring current political issues on which the history of republican thought offers useful insights. Yet that post simultaneously pointed towards my next project.

The cover of Thomas Hollis’s edition of James Harrington’s The Commonwealth of Oceana, Houghton Library, Harvard University: HOU GEN *EC65.H2381 656c (B) Lobby IV.2.18. I am grateful to staff at the Houghton for giving me permission to include this here and to Dr Mark Somos for his assistance. Note the owl on the front cover which indicates the wisdom of the text.

In early modern Europe, improvements in the mechanics of printing, rising literacy levels, and a series of political crises, combined to provide both the means and the market for an outpouring of political texts. Historians of political thought have paid great attention to the content or substance of those texts; analysing the language used, the arguments made, the debates to which they contributed, and the historical contexts out of which they emerged. Far less attention has been paid to the form of these texts, by which I mean both the genre(s) in which they were written and their physical or material aspects. There was no uniform genre for early modern political works, they could take the form of philosophical treatises, dialogues, travel literature, utopias, even poetry or drama. Moreover, many of them playfully blended fact and fiction. Similarly, the material dimensions of political texts - including their size, paper quality, frontispieces, typeface and binding - varied enormously and often provide clues as to their intended audiences and relate closely to the arguments they were designed to convey. Moreover understanding the ways in which those texts circulated as physical objects is also crucial to making sense of both the intentions of their authors and the ways in which they were received and used by readers.

Paying attention to these aspects of early modern political texts is crucial if we are to understand fully the functions of those texts. Often they were designed not merely to inform their readers and convince them of the validity of the arguments presented, but to prompt their readers' engagement with those arguments and even incite them to action. This was particularly important for republican texts, which were often explicitly concerned with provoking a shift from otium (contemplation) to negotium (action).

The elaborate frontispiece to John Toland’s edition of James Harrington’s The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington (London, 1737), Copy author’s own.

It was my work on James Harrington that first drew these neglected aspects of early modern political texts to my attention. Scholars have long found it difficult to explain why Harrington veiled his greatest work, The Commonwealth of Oceana, in a rather laboured utopian form. The common argument - that it was a way of avoiding censorship - is inadequate given that a work advocating commonwealth government was in line with the views of the authorities in 1656 and that he actually removed the utopian veil from the works he produced in 1659-60 - a much more dangerous moment to voice republican arguments with the return of the monarchy looking increasingly likely. Rather, as I argued in my book, Harrington used the utopian format to indicate that what he was offering in that work was an alternative vision of England's future - one that departed in crucial ways from the actual path that had started to be taken after the dissolution of the Rump Parliament in 1653. Moreover, the fictional elements were designed to give the impression to his readers that the events he was describing were actually taking place, thereby providing them with the opportunity to imagine his ideal commonwealth and effectively to try it on for size - albeit in their imaginations rather than in reality. This fitted with Harrington's underlying philosophy that people are more likely to be convinced of the viability of new systems and institutions if they experience them rather than just read about them. This strategy also extended beyond the genre of the work to its physical form, with the constitutional orders printed in black type to make them look to seventeenth-century readers like official proclamations issued by the Government.

As my initial research has revealed, Harrington was by no means unique in using this sort of strategy. Examining the form of other early modern political texts therefore has the potential to enrich and expand our understanding of those texts, the arguments their authors were advocating, and the impact they were designed to elicit in their readers. Over the next few months I will offer a number of case studies of early modern political writers whose attention to form was central to their mission and purpose.

Exploring these methods and considering how effective they were in achieving their ends has implications for our reading of those texts today and for the ways in which they are presented to modern audiences. It raises questions, for example, about the relative advantages of accessing the text in its original form, in a modern paper edition, or in a digital version. It also prompts us to think about whether there may be ways of reflecting the material elements of a text (its size, paper quality etc.) in digital form. Finally, all of this raises questions about how political arguments are articulated today. Does the format in which we receive political information or opinion affect how we understand or approach it? How far does the layout of a text determine the extent to which we engage with or interact with it? Do we respond differently to political ideas that come to us in hard copy (in a newspaper or printed book) as compared with those that we access digitally? And how do different digital formats affect our understanding? In both these contexts, paying attention to form as well as to substance may yield some interesting observations.