Newspaper Historical Context

Licensing Act of 1662	The long title is “An Act for preventing the frequent Abuses in printing seditious treasonable and unlicensed Books and Pamphlets and for regulating of Printing and Printing Presses”
Tax on newspaper 1711	This occurred due to the increasing popularity and influence of newspapers because it was problematic for the government. This was a halfpenny on papers of half a sheet or less and a penny on newspapers that ranged from a half a sheet to a single sheet in size.
The Observer	This is a British newspaper only published on Sundays. It was first published in 1791 and it is the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper.
Reduction of the stamp tax in 1836	This was first imposed in 1712 for British newspapers The tax gradually increased until 1836 when the 4d tax on newspapers was reduced to 1d.
‘Golden age’ of newspaper publication	79 years ago, the newspaper industry was a very competitive business, the leading newspaper would do very well, numbers 2 and 3 would do okay and every other newspaper suffered. By the time we got to the sixties, newspapers no longer had 2 or 3 sections, they had gardening sections, food sections, life-style sections etc. and ad sales really came through; the industry was plummeting. Now the dilemma for newspapers is being able to sell the most paper copies and having a large readership, newspapers are turning to online news now as that is the way the society is progressing.
Profits from advertising	Adverts are the only thing that pay for newspapers to be distributed. The Times profits near £11 million etc.
The press Council	This was a voluntary press organisation which was founded by General Council in 1953 with a non-binding regulatory framework. This was funded by newspaper proprietors. The aim was maintaining high standards of ethics in journalism.
The Independent	This is a British online newspaper. The last printed newspaper was published on Saturday 20 March 2016. Currently, the newspaper is online due to lack of circulation.
Phone Hacking Scandal	The phone hacking scandal was that there were allegations that News of the World editor and other world news journalists were involved in hacking people’s phones leading to the closure of the 168 year old News of the World tabloid in 2011.
Decline in the newspaper circulation