A National Public Sphere? Analyzing the Language, Location, and Form of Newspapers in Finland, 1771–1917 Jani Marjanen, Ville Vaara, Antti Kanner, Hege Roivainen, Eetu Mäkelä, Leo Lahti, and Mikko Tolonen Journal of European Periodical Studies, 4.1 (Summer 2019) ISSN 2506-6587 Content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Licence The Journal of European Periodical Studies is hosted by Ghent University Website: ojs.ugent.be/jeps To cite this article: Jani Marjanen, Ville Vaara, Antti Kanner, Hege Roivainen, Eetu Mäkelä, Leo Lahti, and Mikko Tolonen, ‘A National Public Sphere? Analyzing the Language, Location, and Form of Newspapers in Finland, 1771–1917’, Journal of European Periodical Studies, 4.1 (Summer 2019), 55–78 A National Public Sphere? Analyzing the Language, Location, and Form of Newspapers in Finland, 1771–1917 Jani Marjanen*, Ville Vaara*, Antti Kanner*, Hege Roivainen*, Eetu Mäkelä*, Leo Lahti^, and Mikko Tolonen*1 *University of Helsinki and ^University of Turku
[email protected] ABSTRACT This article uses metadata from serial publications as a means of modelling the historical development of the public sphere. Given that a great deal of historical knowledge is generated through narratives relying on anecdotal evidence, a well-conceived attempt to rely on newspapers for modeling the past can challenge customary approaches in political and cultural history. Our aim is to explore this possibility by using well-established statistical methods. The focus in this article is on Finland, but our approach is also scalable to other regions. During the period 1771–1917 newspapers developed as a mass medium in the Grand Duchy of Finland within two imperial configurations (Sweden until 1809 and Russia in 1809–1917), and in the two main languages — Swedish and Finnish.