Technology and Public Opinion in the United States

Abstract

Few subjects are exposed to more pitfalls than those concerned with public opinion since the student is so completely influenced by the phenomena he attempts to describe. Objectivity may be improved by considering its development over a long period of time but even a description of this character must register the results of an astigma adjusted to present environment. Freedom of the press in the United States emerged as a result of a clash with restrictive policies in Great Britain in the eighteenth century. Attempts of the mother country to extend such policies to the colonies involved an attack on the moulders of public opinion at a most sensitive point. Newspapers had developed in relation to printing establishments set up for the purposes of printing laws for the various assemblies and to the post office through which news and advertisements were collected and from which they were distributed. The stamp tax of 1765 imposed a heavy burden on a commodity which sold at a low price and was not to be tolerated by those chiefly concerned. They provoked an agitation which secured its withdrawal. It was followed by controversies leading to the revolution which attracted the contributions of able writers. The active role of the press in the revolution was crowned by a guarantee of freedom under the Bill of Rights.

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