The structural transformation of the public sphere in Scotland: print culture, class conflict, and opinion formation, c.1850-1920s

Thoreson, Jonas (2025) The structural transformation of the public sphere in Scotland: print culture, class conflict, and opinion formation, c.1850-1920s. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

As seen from the perspective of antagonistic Scottish print publics, how did the commercialisation of the press after the repeal of the ‘Taxes on Knowledge’ change the dynamics of class conflict, critical democratic deliberation, and opinion formation? The thesis reconsiders Habermas’s narrative of public sphere transformation (examined in Chapter 1) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through a series of case studies of periodicals printed in Glasgow, including the daily Glasgow Advertiser (1783-), Thomas Johnston’s ILP-aligned weekly Forward (1906-1959), and the Marxian monthly the Socialist (1902-1924). Through readings of the clashing post-bourgeois commercial and proletarian (earlier plebeian) print public spheres, the thesis contributes to comparative historical studies of distinct cultural formations, to Habermasian theory and public sphere studies, and to the history of education in Scotland. Chapter 2 analyses the Glasgow Herald (as the Advertiser became called) and its publishing company George Outram & Co., arguing that the proprietors resolved the dilemma of maintaining an organic community of readers for the mother-publication while pursuing the financial opportunities of an expanded reading public by segmenting the offering with the evening paper Glasgow Evening Times. I analyse the cultural fragmentation effects of commercial print culture, and the Glasgow Herald’s defensive strategies of containment via public opinion management, policing, and directed educational efforts by focussing on its mediation of the 1919 Battle of George Square and debates on post-war reconstruction. Chapter 3 analyses the Socialist which projected a socialist public sphere model, but actually constituted an intervention-driven proletarian counterpublic directed at the ideological and educational needs of the labour movement. I highlight continuities with plebeian radicalism in its educational praxis, and suggest that this formation became entangled in an ambiguous cultural politics which made it prone to isolation from wider working-class culture and legitimising constitutional discourses. Chapter 4 analyses the Forward’s distinctive cultural practices through advertisements, public notices, discussion- and legal-advice columns, showing a cross-class public approximating a deliberative Kantian public sphere model fusing morality with politics and political representation with enlightenment. Through debates on adult education in Forward, and following Raymond Williams, I argue that the labour movement contributed to cultural democratisation in Britain through hegemonic contestation. In the Conclusion, I propose further research into the emergence of critical populism.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Additional Information: Supported by funding through the William Lauchlan Mann Memorial Prize, and then through the Arts and Humanities Research Council scholarship awarded by the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities (grant number AH/R012717/1).
• Subjects: D History General and Old World > D History (General) > D204 Modern History; H Social Sciences > HM Sociology; P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0080 Criticism; P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0441 Literary History
• Colleges/Schools: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > English Literature
• Funder's Name: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), William Lauchlan Mann Memorial Prize
• Supervisor's Name: Benchimol, Dr. Alex, Dick, Dr. Maria-Daniella and Murphy, Dr. Mark
• Date of Award: 2025
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2025-84962
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 26 Mar 2025 16:20
• Last Modified: 26 Mar 2025 16:21
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.84962
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/84962