Positioning Riga in the 19th Century News Network: Tracing International News Flows in the Rigasche Zeitung Newspaper, 1802–1888; pp. 3–34

Abstract

This paper explores the possibilities of researching the historical circulation of news using place-date headings, the place of origin and date that was printed with a news paragraph. We demonstrate the possibilities of these headings using a 19th century German-language newspaper from Riga. We propose using digital methods to extract and use them to calculate the speed at which news travelled from different locations, as well as to map the geographical coverage of the newspaper. We also combine our results and perform a case study on the Crimean War. The results of our analysis show that place-date headings can be used effectively to study historical information flows, including cross-lingual ones, with less data and effort than required by other methods.

Keywords

• networks of communication
• news networks
• newspapers
• digital analysis
• baltic history
• place-date headings