“I saw the Man, that saw the Man, that said he saw this wondrous Sight”
“I saw the Man, that saw the Man, that said he saw this wondrous Sight”

Mediating the Spectacle of George III’s Coronation in the Newspapers

Author(s): Paul Goring
Subject(s): Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, Philology, History of Art, British Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: 18th-century; newspapers; printed word; mediation; spectacle
Summary/Abstract: The idea of the newspaper as a substitute eye working in the service of the reader, reflected in 18th-century titles, was predominant for most of the first two centuries of print-newspaper history. Newspapers were there to observe, and what they observed was primarily conveyed by the power of the printed word. Word-based forms of news reporting could also be ‘visual’, and this essay aims to expose the visual aspirations apparent in the work of early news writers. It does this by considering the newspaper reporting of the 1761 coronation of George III, which was a visually lavish public occasion that formed part of the ‘spectacular politics’ of the era. Although a mass public desire to see something unmediated can still be demonstrated, the newspapers also provided a critique of traditional spectatorship, pointing to the emerging power of the press.

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