If you’ve read just about any post on this site, you know how much we value the importance of unique, original content — and the tools to effectively produce and disseminate that content.
We’ve written about the recent Iranian elections — and how citizens are using new online tools to effectively collect and share their content (photos, videos, twitter posts, etc. of government crackdowns and protests.) These new tools have been vital to circumventing the government censorship of traditional media to tell the truth about what’s occurring in that country.
So, as we celebrate the Independence Day holiday this weekend, we draw attention to the years leading up to July 4, 1776 — and how the dawn of new content tools allowed ordinary citizens to communicate, protest their government and disseminate unique, compelling content that competed with the government-run press.
In fact, up until about prior to the American Revolution, there was only one newspaper in all of Virginia. That paper was heavily subsidized by the royals and, as such, was a de facto government mouthpiece.
As this research paper (“Thomas Jefferson and the Originals of Newspaper Competition in Pre-Revolutionary Virginia”) points out, the dawn of the Stamp Act changed all that. This new law not only hurt the taxpayers economically, it also served to silence opposition voices by making it tougher and more expensive to produce printed materials.
So — a number of enterprising Virginians decided to bring in their own newspaper to compete with the government mouthpiece. The research paper mentioned above points out:
Great changes came to the printing business in Virginia in 1765. About the time that Parliament passed the Stamp Act, a second printer was encouraged to open another shop in Williamsburg, marking the beginnings of competition in that field. This was an important watershed for the culture and government of the colony, for it signified a shift in the power structure. Control of public messages began to relocate from the royal government to the consumer marketplace. This was a transformation that had a major impact on civic discourse in the colony.
And Thomas Jefferson himself wrote:
“Until the beginning of our revolutionary dispute, we had but one press, and that having the whole business of the government, and no competitor for public favor, nothing disagreeable to the governor could be got into it. We procured Rind to come from Maryland to publish a free paper.”
In short, oppressive governments have always realized that truthful content is a deadly weapon. So, as in the cases of pre-revolutionary Britain and modern day Iran, these governments moved to shut down the ability to disseminate this content.
And, as in the cases of the Virginian and Iranian revolutionaries — the citizens simply found ways to disseminate their content, anyway.
At first glance, there seems a world of difference betwee the Virginians’ purchase of a second printing press — and the Iranians’ use of YouTube, Twitter and FriendFeed. But, while the technology is different — the end result is the same: the effective production and dissemination of unique, compelling content.