Page 72 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

P1: IPI/IBE/IRR/GYQ
August 13, 2002
0 521 80067 6
CY101-Bimber
10:39
CY101-02
The Rise of Majoritarianism
could follow the affairs of the nation as a whole, signal their intentions,
claim credit for policy and outcomes, and appeal for the public authority
to institute change. Contemporaries had the sense that the vast distances
of the nation were being overcome or even rendered unimportant, and
some even spoke of the creation of national community. 56 By about
the end of Madison’s life in 1836, a sweeping change in the movement
of political information had occurred in the United States, creating a
system of the general sort that he had claimed vital to the health of
democracy.

It is important to note that these changes are attributable only partly
to “technology,” defined narrowly as artifacts, though rapid changes in
techniques of printing were indeed part of the story. In the two and half
centuries following the invention of printing, comparatively few techno-
logical improvements were made. Then in the early eighteenth century,
mass printing was facilitated by a variety of developments, especially the
mass production of paper in continuous sheets and the iron printing
press, which was followed quickly by the steam-driven rotary press. The
hand-powered screw presses in use at the time of the American found-
ing could produce at best about 150 sheets per hour; however, by 1827,
mechanizedstate-of-the-artpressescouldprint7,000sheetsinanhour. 57
By the end of the nineteenth century, this figure would grow by another
factor of ten. While these technological developments fueled the dra-
matic change in information infrastructure, the information revolution
depended more importantly on the development of two organizations:
the postal bureaucracy and the political party.
The contributions of this information revolution to the Jacksonian
democratizationandbroaderpoliticaldevelopmentwerepervasive.With
the fall of voting qualifications, which were largely gone by 1840, came
new political divisions and an explosion in voting participation, which
rose from around 10 percent in 1820 to 80 percent in 1840. This flood of
citizens into the democratic process outpaced even the entry of women
after 1920 and African Americans in the South in the middle of the
twentieth century. 58 At the same time, states were instituting popular
elections for presidential electors, permitting newly enfranchised voters
to do what Madison would have abhorred: to vote for president, even if
indirectly. New norms of egalitarianism and the decay of social hierarchy,
56 57
John, Spreading the News. Fang, A History of Mass Communication.
58
Harold W. Stanley and Richard G. Niemi, Vital Statistics on American Politics, 1997–
1998 (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1998).
55