Study British Public Audience At The Beginning Of The 19th Century

Britain is one of the most developed countries in modern media. Books andnewspapers play a very important role in British’s routine life. The late18th and early19th was the years that a mass reading public began to appear in Britain. The variouspolitical, economic and social factors of the old era that restrict reading practices werebeginning to loose. Mass readers, with their autonomy of reading, began to movingforward as modern readers. This article discusses: the development process of theprinting and publishing industry after the printing technology introduced into England.How readers of old eras practiced their reading activities under the social context.Until the end of the18th century, the British book industry had experienced anessential shift. Under the influence of various political, economic and social factors inthat period, the reading practices of British readers changed. The texts, means andplaces of reading practice varied. Changes also happened in shaping the morals,thoughts and mentalities of the nation. This article focuses on the overall status of thelate18th early19th century British readers, and concluded that in the19th centuryBritain, the reading communities began to took shape in a modern sense, readingpractice disseminated to all levels of society in vertical and horizontal levels, andeventually formed British readers with modern features.