By the eighteenth century, newspapers had become firmly established as a means of spreading news of European and world affairs, as well as of local concerns, within European society. One of the first true newspapers was the Dutch paper Nieuwe Tijdingen. It began publication in the early seventeenth century at about the same time that the overseas trading company called the Dutch East India Company was formed. The same ships that brought goods back from abroad brought news of the world, too.

Dutch publishers had an advantage over many other publishers around Europe because the Netherlands’ highly decentralized political system made its censorship laws very difficult to enforce. Throughout Europe in the seventeenth century, governments began recognizing the revolutionary potential of the free press and began requiring licenses of newspapers—to control who was able to publish news. Another tactic, in France and elsewhere on the continent from the 1630s onward, was for governments to sponsor official newspapers. These state publications met the increasing demand for news but always supported the government’s views of the events of the day.

By the eighteenth century, new conditions allowed newspapers to flourish as never before. First, demand for news increased as Europe’s commercial and political interests spread around the globe—merchants in London, Liverpool, or Glasgow, for example, came to depend on early news of Caribbean harvests and gains and losses in colonial wars. Europe’s growing commercial strength also increased distribution networks for newspapers. There were more and better roads, and more vehicles could deliver newspapers in cities and convey them to outlying towns. Newspaper publishers made use of the many new sites where the public expected to read, as newspapers were delivered to cafes and sold or delivered by booksellers.

Second, many European states had established effective postal systems by the eighteenth century. It was through the mail that readers outside major cities and their environs—and virtually all readers in areas where press censorship was exercised firmly—received their newspapers. One of the most successful newspapers in Europe was a French-language paper (one of the many known as La Gazette) published in Leiden, in the Netherlands, which boasted a wide readership in France and among elites throughout Europe.

Finally, press censorship faltered in one of the most important markets for news—England—at the turn of the eighteenth century. After 1688, debate raged about whether the Parliament or the press flourished. The emergence of political parties further hampered control of the press because political decisions in Parliament now always involved compromise, and many members believed that an active press was useful to that process. British government control of the press was reduced to taxing newspapers, a tactic that drove some papers out of business.

Eighteenth-century newspapers were modest products by modern Western standards. Many were published only once or twice a week instead of every day, in editions of only a few thousand copies. Each newspaper was generally only four pages long. Illustrations were rare, and headlines had not yet been invented. Hand-operated wooden presses were used to print the papers, just as they had been used to print pamphlets and books since the invention of printing in the fifteenth century.

Yet these newspapers had a dramatic impact on their reading public. Regular production of newspapers (especially of many competing newspapers) meant that news was presented to the public at regular intervals and in manageable amounts. Even strange and threatening news from around the world became increasingly easy for readers to absorb and interpret. Newspaper readers also felt themselves part of the public life about which they were reading. This was true partly because newspapers, available in public reading rooms and in cafes, were one kind of reading that occupied an increasingly self-aware and literate audience. Newspapers also were uniquely responsive to their readers. They began to carry advertisements, which both produced revenue for papers and widened readers’ exposure to their own communities. Even more important was the inauguration of letters to the editor in which readers expressed their opinions about events. Newspapers thus became venues for the often rapid exchange of news and opinions.

十八世纪以来，报纸已经成为欧洲社会传播欧洲乃至于全世界大事，以及地方关注事件的强有力手段。第一份真正的报纸是荷兰报纸《新闻报》。该报纸于十七世纪开始出版发行，与海外贸易公司即荷兰东印度公司成立的时间大致相同。这些船只在将国外货物运回的同时，也带回了世界各地的新闻。 荷兰出版商比欧洲其他许多出版商更具优势，因为荷兰政治制度十分松散，使得其审查制度非常难以执行。在整个十七世纪，欧洲各国政府开始认识到出版自由的革命潜力，并开始要求获得报纸的许可证- 来决定谁能够发布新闻。在法国，以及十七世纪三十年代后欧洲大陆的其他国家，另一种策略是由各国政府赞助官方报纸。这些国家出版物满足了对新闻的日益增长的需求，但是需要一直支持政府对当天大事的观点。 到了十八世纪，新的发展条件使得报纸得到了蓬勃发展，这是前所未有的。首先，随着欧洲的商业和政治活动遍布了全球，增加了人们对新闻的需求- 例如，伦敦，利物浦或格拉斯哥的商人开始通过新闻关注加勒比地区的收成，以及殖民地战争的利弊得失。欧洲不断增长的商业实力也增加了报纸的分销网络。欧洲的街道和车辆越来越多，这不仅可以在城市中送报纸，甚至可以将报纸送至外围的城镇。报纸出版商利用了许多公众期望进行阅读的新地点，例如可以将报纸送到咖啡馆，或交由书商出售或递送。 其次，十八世纪以来，许多欧洲国家建立了有效的邮政系统。正是通过邮政，非主要城市及其周围地区的读者 – 事实上所有新闻审查严重受限地区的读者 – 都能收到报纸。欧洲最成功的报纸之一是在荷兰莱顿出版的法文报纸（众所周知的《公报》），该报在法国和欧洲各地拥有广泛的读者群。 最后，在十八世纪之交，最重要的新闻市场之一 - 英格兰- 新闻审查停滞不前。 1688年之后，议会或新闻界是否可以蓬勃发展引发了广泛的争论。政党的出现进一步限制了对新闻界的控制，因为当前议会中的政治决策总是包含着妥协，许多成员认为活跃的新闻媒体有益于这一进程。英国政府对新闻界的控制方法简化为对报纸进行征税，这种策略导致一些报纸被迫停业。 十八世纪的报纸是西方现代标准的产物。许多报纸每周仅出版一次或两次，而不是每天出版，且只发行几千本。每份报纸一般只有四页长，插图很少，也没有标题。用手工操作的木制印刷机来印刷纸张，就像自十五世纪印刷术发明以来一直用于印刷小册子和书籍一样。 然而这些报纸对广大读者产生了巨大的影响。定期出版报纸（尤其出版许多具有竞争性的报纸）意味着新闻可定期向社会发布，并且发布的数量可控。甚至于，来自于世界各地的奇怪和具有威胁性的新闻也变得越来越易于读者的理解。报纸读者也可以感受到他们融入了他们正在阅读的公共生活。这是真实的，部分原因在于，在公共阅览室和咖啡馆阅读报纸是一种阅读方式，占据了读者越来越多的自我意识和文化意识。报纸也是对读者的唯一回应。他们开始进行广告宣传，这既能为报纸创造收入，又扩大了读者对自己团体的曝光度。更重要的是向编辑致信，让读者可以就事件发表意见。因此报纸成为经常快速交流新闻和观点的场所。