Interconnected vernacular and English-language presses created a colonial public sphere after 1857

Evidence

This ideological contest took place through the circuits of a newly emergent, or at least radically transformed, colonial public. During the years following the Rebellion of 1857, the vernacular press exploded in size. Debates about imperial policies increasingly circulated through interconnected spheres of publications in Indian languages, the English-language press in India, and imperial news networks reaching beyond India. The press coverage of the case provides a window into the circuits of this colonial public. — Julia Stephens, The Phantom Wahhabi, 108

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the concept of a ‘colonial public’ as a set of interconnected publication circuits rather than a single unified readership.
• XREF: Resonates with work on print capitalism and imagined communities — connects to Anderson-style arguments about newspapers manufacturing shared political space.