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Destitute islanders from Barra arrived on the Scottish mainland in late 1850 following successive failures of the island's annual potato crop. Their presence, behaviour and the actions of their erstwhile proprietor, Colonel John Gordon of Cluny garnered newspaper coverage and comment. During the previous five years, these same, predominantly Lowland papers reported on how proprietors, the state and the public reacted to the humanitarian crisis as it unfolded throughout the Highlands and Ireland. Centuries-old Lowland views as to why Highlanders were unable to sustain themselves resurfaced, often woven into journalistic commentary on the aforementioned responses. This paper considers the state of the island purchased by Cluny, his investment in improvements and the resulting return he expected to accrue. Journalist and anti-proprietor campaigner Donald Ross attempted to hold Cluny to account for his behaviour towards his tenants when famine struck. Ross brought the islanders' plight to the attention of readers of his columns, while also orchestrating events which achieved both positive and critical comments in the press. Finally, an assessment is offered of the relative importance of the story to newspaper editors, their readerships and Cluny's own public legacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that editors of newspapers in the US, in their capacity to select and arrange news related to tragic events in Palestine/Israel, tend to follow an underlying political agenda largely conforming with US foreign policy towards Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab or Moslem world more generally. This is part of a popular American geopolitical imaginary, now being reconfigured through the primacy of 'terror' as the enemy number one of the American way of life, and most certainly, by proxy, of the Israeli way of life or the life of any Washington-oriented democracy. Reportage on cases of Palestinian tragedy and agony were represented as part of or the byproduct of protracted conflict within a kind of historical amnesia or bracketing out: Israeli state policy which victimises the Palestinians tends to be rendered invisible in such manipulation of reported reality. In other words, a deft editorial arrangement deflects possible blame on Israel by removing the events from their broader context and time frame. The reports centre on symptoms of the pathology rather than its underlying causes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to examine Scottish politics in the decade or so following the Second World War. The objective is to uncover the texture of Scottish politics in a period that has been characterised rather simplistically. Much of the evidence for the paper is drawn from the Scottish popular press, most notably newspapers such as the Bulletin, which was a Glasgow publication with a unionist outlook, motivated by a concern to keep Scottish issues to the fore and to resist centralisation. The article will examine the way in which interpretations of this period in Scottish politics, as being one dominated by a unionism that was common to the main parties, serve to flatten what was an interesting and contested landscape. There is a considerable literature on this period in British historiography that engages in a debate about the value of the idea of 'consensus' in British politics. The apparent consensus over the Union hid a range of important debates about the way in which the Union ought to operate that were of such an extent as to bring the idea of a unionist consensus into question. Given that the Scottish National Party was such a marginal force in Scottish politics in this period, it seems more sensible to focus on the debates about the meaning of the Union rather than to adopt an existential focus that was simply not present in day-to-day political debate in the decade following the Second World War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the decline of local newspapers due to the rise of digital media, with many local weekly publications disappearing. The loss of local newspapers has had consequences for democracy, as they serve as watchdogs for courts, councils, schools, and hospitals. The article also highlights W. Hamish Fraser's book, "The Edinburgh History of Scottish Newspapers, 1850–1950," which focuses on the opinions expressed in Scottish newspapers during this time period. Fraser explores the ownership, editors, and journalists of various newspapers, giving attention to regional papers and their influence on communities. The book also discusses the impact of the telegraph on newspapers and the pursuit of controversy in Scottish newspapers. However, the book lacks in-depth analysis of the role of advertisements in sustaining newspapers. Overall, the article suggests that Fraser's book provides a foundation for further study on the history of Scottish newspapers. [Extracted from the article]

While the importance of closer, wider communications to Scotland and Scots adaptation to life within the Union, and the development of Britishness, has been commonly acknowledged, the role of the Post Office within these processes has never been systematically examined. This article charts the increasingly rapid development of postal services within Scotland and linking Scotland to London and the rest of England and Wales from the mid eighteenth century. It demonstrates the sheer extent and scope of growth of postal services in Scotland, and explores their use by different sections of Scottish society, by the mid nineteenth century. While commerce and manufacturing, as well as banking, together with the landed classes, account for the main sources of growth in use of the post, they were far from the sole beneficiaries of expanding, more efficient services. Scotland participated fully in the democratization of letter writing which was a feature of the Georgian period. The article then reflects on the consequences of these developments for the enfolding of Scotland within Britain and the rise of the latter as a salient framework within which people lived their lives. It underlines, in this context, the contemporary importance of letter writing and transmission of printed information to sustaining and forging connections and relationships between people and businesses, and overcoming frictions of distance within Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the historical context of the development and modernization of the press, of an increasingly intense transnational circulation of ideas and of editorial styles, this essay sets out to analyze the reasons why reading rooms specialized in the foreign-language press, especially in English—for which the market was narrow—were successful in Paris during the first half of the nineteenth century. It examines the consequences of the circulation of the normally difficult to access British periodicals and newspapers, such as the Edinburgh Review, the Quarterly Review and the Westminster Review present in these reading rooms, on the transformation of the French media system. In the 1850s and 1860s, the wind started to change direction. By then, on the other side of the Channel, Alexander Macmillan and Mathew Arnold had become fervent admirers of the famous Revue des deux mondes. This turnabout testifies to the complexity of the mechanisms at work behind transnational cultural transfers and media innovation in France and in Britain at the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]