![Sample our Communication Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, 2013 & 2014 volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5927/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Information-Science2.jpg"})
Abstract
This article examines how three elite newspapers – the Daily Telegraph, The Times, and the Manchester Guardian – used correspondence columns to promote informed and balanced public debate, showing how this was independent of editorial arguments as part of extended commitment to conceptions of the ‘educational ideal’. It focuses on the campaign of the Women’s Social and Political Union, and particularly hunger strikes and the government’s response of forcible feeding, to evaluate how public figures with authority and institutional credibility engaged with each other in the press. With regard to the work of Jürgen Habermas, the article also considers how an effective public sphere was framed and maintained in elite newspapers, but also how access was partially circumscribed based on expertise and social status in line with the wider nature of Edwardian democracy.
KEYWORDS:
Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank Adrian Bingham for his encouragement and invaluable advice on earlier drafts of this article.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Manchester Guardian, 10 September 1909.
2 Ibid.
3 Hampton, Visions of the Press, 9.
4 Vessey, “Words as well as Deeds,” 24.
5 Bingham, Gender, 28.
6 Tusan, Women Making News, 140.
7 Mercer, “Media and Militancy,” 473; Vessey, “Words as well as Deeds,” 8–9.
8 Tusan, Women Making News, 141.
9 Wahl-Jorgensen, “Understanding the Conditions,” 70–6.
10 Collini, Public Moralists, 236.
11 Habermas, Structural Transformation, 169.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid., 185.
14 Crossley and Roberts, “Introduction,” 6.
15 Ibid., 12.
16 Lee, Origins, 89.
17 Lee, “The Structure,” 124.
18 Butler and Butler, British Political Facts, 573. Figures for 1910 are taken from T.B. Browne’s Advertiser’s ABC.
19 Burnham, Peterborough Court, 109.
20 Griffiths, Fleet Street, 234.
21 Woods and Bishop, Story of the Times, 184–5.
22 History of the Times, 457.
23 Butler and Butler, British Political Facts, 573.
24 Ibid; Lee, Origins, 292.
25 Hampton, “The Press,” 182.
26 Ibid., 196.
27 Pugh, The March, 230.
28 Ayerst, Guardian, 329.
29 The Times, 18 December 1909.
30 Manchester Guardian, 24 August 1912.
31 Daily Telegraph, 17 November 1913.
32 Daily Telegraph, 20 November 1913.
33 Ibid.
34 The Times, 1 October 1909.
35 The Times, 17 March 1914.
36 The Times, 24 March 1914.
37 British Medical Journal, 21 July 1923, 132.
38 The Times, 26 March 1912.
39 Manchester Guardian, 3 October 1909.
40 Manchester Guardian, 29 September 1909.
41 Daily Telegraph, 29 September 1909.
42 The Times, 29 September 1909; The Times, 19 March 1913.
43 The Times, 23 April 1913.
44 Daily Telegraph, 22 March 1913.
45 Daily Telegraph, 25 February 1913.
46 Daily Telegraph, 28 February 1913.
47 The Times, 27 September 1912.
48 Daily Telegraph, 3 April 1913.
49 Manchester Guardian, 4 October 1909.
50 The Times, 26 March 1912.
51 Manchester Guardian, 18 July 1913.
52 Manchester Guardian, 29 July 1914.
53 Manchester Guardian, 8 July 1914.
54 Daily Telegraph, 10 February 1914.
55 The Times, 6 July 1914.
56 The Times, 21 November 1913.
57 Daily Telegraph, 26 February 1913.
58 Daily Telegraph, 28 February 1913.
59 Daily Telegraph, 29 September 1909; The Times, 21 September 1909.
60 Manchester Guardian, 21 June 1913.
61 The Times, 5 October 1909.
62 Daily Telegraph, 30 March 1910.
63 The Times, 4 October 1909.
64 The Times, 24 June 1912.
65 Manchester Guardian, 27 September 1912.
66 The Times, 17 April 1913.
67 Ayerst, Guardian, 353.
68 Manchester Guardian, 29 September 1909.
69 Ibid.
70 Manchester Guardian, 11 June 1913.
71 Ibid.
72 Manchester Guardian, 29 June 1912.
73 Daily Telegraph, 22 March 1913.
74 The Times, 6 June 1914.
75 Butler and Butler, British Political Facts, 573.
76 Daily Telegraph, 5 March 1913.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
David Vessey
David Vessey, Department of History, The University of Sheffield, Jessop West, 1 Upper Hanover Street, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, S3 7RA, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland E-mail d.vessey@sheffield.ac.uk