Page 73 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

P1: IPI/IBE/IRR/GYQ
10:39
August 13, 2002
CY101-Bimber
CY101-02
0 521 80067 6
Information Revolutions
as well as expanding education and literacy, formed a cultural foundation
for political participation. 59
At the center of this democratization were the newly nationalizing
parties. Unlike the Federalists and Democratic Republicans, the Whigs
and Democrats institutionalized themselves as professional political or-
ganizations, driving the development of political identity and loyalty,
and organizing the political behavior of the electorate. The energy of
the parties and their central position in American politics from the time
of Jackson on, as well as the coherent and organized political behavior
of the public itself, depended on the new information and communica-
tion capacity. The new parties could use the postal–press system to do
something the protoparties of the 1790s and 1800s could not: commu-
nicate with citizens on a national scale. To be sure, the Federalists and
Republicans had been deeply involved in the newspaper business. One
of the basic functions of party organizing before the 1820s had been the
founding and operation of newspapers. In many cases, newspapers had
60
not been viable financially without party sponsorship. As a result, the
media and the protoparties of the early postcolonial period were more
tightly linked than they would ever again be. However, the newspapers
operated by the protoparties were aimed at elite audiences who might
control or influence votes, rather than at the citizenry at large. Ironically,
the parties benefited most from newspapers only after they yielded eco-
nomic control in the 1820s and ’30s. The rise of the paper as a business
fueled mass politics and therefore the creation of nation-wide audiences.
Loss of the economic connection between papers and parties ultimately
led to deeper institutionalization of both into the fabric of American
politics. By 1831, when the first national party convention was held by
the Anti-Masonics, and in 1832 when the Democrats followed with their
own, communication with citizens through newspapers was becoming a
central instrument of party power in a new way.
Many of the institutional changes for which the 1830s and 1840s are so
widelyknown,suchastheexpandedfranchiseorthenominatingconven-
tioninplaceofthecaucus,infactcommittedpartiestomasscampaignsof
information and persuasion if they were to succeed, and were premised
on the capacity of citizens to receive politically relevant information.

59
See Formisano, “Federalists and Republicans: Parties, Yes – System, No”; McCormick,
The Second American Party System; Goodman, “The First American Party System”;
Schudson, The Good Citizen; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Jackson (Boston:
Little, Brown, 1946).
60
Cook, Governing with the News.
56