Pressen i Christiansand stiftamt 1768-1814: På leting etter en borgerlig offentlighetsform

Abstract

This master's thesis aims to discover whether there existed expressions akin to a form of Habermas public sphere defined as a potential oppositional room against the authorities in the press of Christiansand stiftamt in the period 1768-1814. In the literature there exists a discrepancy between the amount of research about the other stiftsbyers press in the given period, and the press from Christiandsand stiftamt. This thesis thus aims to bring about something new from this local press and its placement within the history of the public sphere.

Four different periodicals were pressed and published in the stiftamt, one weekly magazine, one journal, and two address-notifications papers. The first published periodical was the address-notification paper Kongelige Privelegerede Adresse-Contoirs Efterretninger udi Christiansand Stift (1768-1772). It had to be handwritten as there were no local printing press. This changed in 1779 with Andreas Swane’s arrival to the city. He established a printing press and published the weekly magazine Christiansandske Uge-Blade (1780-1788). While the other stiftsbyers address-notifications papers continued being published unabated, Kristiansand went without in a period of 18 years. In 1790 two bourgeois men came together to buy Swane’s printing press and gained the rights to publish a local address-notification paper, Kristiansands Adresse Kontorets Efterretninger. The paper is still alive today as an integrated part of the local paper Fædrelandsvennen. Early in the writing process it was discovered that the journal Bellona (1807-1809) not was worth further study in relation to the thesis’s topic.

The terms of utterances varied greatly in the chosen period for the thesis. Denmark-Norway went from having material censored before publishing, to becoming first in the world to establish absolute freedom of the press. This affair lasted only for a short time, and in the years following 1799 the press was being heavily censored. The thesis methodological approach is thus constituted by exploring the terms of utterances in the given period for each of the periodicals, both in a normative sense, and by studying the literature, and then in comparing the contents of the periodicals with these. They thus gain the potential to serve as both affirmation and debilitation in relation to the above.

Expressions akin to a type of the public sphere were found in the periodicals, both openly and hidden, also in periods of strict censorship. However, the king was never directly criticized despite the period for absolute freedom of the press and a later period of somewhat lax censorship. The thesis also concludes that the press in Christiansand stiftamt seemed to approach the different periods terms of utterances in an alike manner to the address-notification paper from Christiania, contrasting Bergens and Trondheims approach with the same. The thesis’s periodicals were also found to harbor a certain folksy element, though it remains unclear whether this was because of local culture, or the small number of possible subscribers and local commerce compared to the other stiftsbyer.