Journalism on Political Economy of the Spanish Enlightenment (1758-1792)

Abstract

This article presents a systematic review of the economic journalism of the Spanish Enlightenment between 1758 and 1792. In addition to identifying this type of journalism, it aims at discovering its sources, determining its main phases around two distinct periods (1758-1771 and 1776-1792), and locating its contents within the doctrinal trends of its time. In the shadow of the journalistic initiatives of this period, a journalism of a plural doctrinal inspiration emerged. It was based on the influence of French journalistic sources. Its culmination was reached in 1792, with the beginning of the publication of El Correo Mercantil. This article also underlines the central role of the publicists of the Madrid Economic Society and the Board of Trade. They were responsible of the improvements experienced in that period by an economic journalism that instigated the creation of a new «public» and gradually approached the journalism developed in other nearby nations.

Keywords

• circulación internacional de las ideas
• ilustración española
• historia de la prensa
• prensa económica y comercial
• junta de comercio.