Tobias Peucer

In 1690, Tobias Peucer was the author of the world's first dissertation on the subject of press and journalism . Not much is known about his life so far.

Origin and career

Peucer comes from Görlitz ; his ancestors were a family that had lived in Lusatia for a long time . His family included the physician and mathematician Kaspar Peucker (1525–1602). A family tree suggests that he was married to Magdalena Melanchthon (born 1531), a daughter of the reformer Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560). Tobias Peucer is likely to come from the fourth generation later, possibly as the second of three sons of his father, who was also called Kaspar. Probably Tobias Peucer remained unmarried and childless. His lifetime could have ranged from 1660 (?) To 1696.

He studied in Leipzig first medicine and wrote in 1677 in this subject his first dissertation entitled "De genorrhoea". He was “diligent in the science of medicine. Before he could see a test of his skills in public, "he wanted to" describe the New Newspapers, "noted the chairman of the examination board.

Peucer held the public disputation on his written work on March 8, 1690 at the University of Leipzig on the subject of "De Relationibus Novellis" ("About newspaper reports") , led by the historian, philologist and Lutheran theologian Professor Adam Rechenberg (1642–1721), then Rector Magnificus of this university. This is a striking date for the history of the newspaper and its scientific analysis. It is not reliably known whether Peucer returned to medicine after his second dissertation or with a comprehensive history of the newspaper industry, as one of his well-wishers suggested in the appendix to his dissertation from 1690. The family tree mentioned speaks of who he worked as a doctor in Bautzen .

Content "De Relationibus Novellis"

In 29 paragraphs, Peucer sets out basic elements of the newspaper and the news business; So it deals with the “popularity of the material”, the “choice of material”, “credibility and love of truth” and “curiosity”. He also writes about "the first founders of newspaper news", about "benefits" and "entertainment" and about the "purpose of the reports".

Peucer, according to press historian Arnulf Kutsch, “indicated a multi-stage process of disseminating news and thereby linking personal and media communication. He categorized the news material and required that events be reviewed and reports on them secured before being published. In addition, he dealt with the style and structure of messages. To this end, he recommended strictly observing those elements that correspond to the classic 'W' questions (Who? What? Why? How? Where? When?) Of today's journalism. "

Kutsch goes on to Peucer's account: “The newspaper offers usefulness in that it provides geographical, genealogical, historical and political knowledge and, through 'incessant repetition', it consolidates such knowledge among 'interested' people. With these considerations, Peucer relied on the arguments of his most important literary source, the work Schediasma curiosum de lectione novellarum, which Christian Weise published in 1685. On the other hand, Peucer's remarks on entertainment as an aspect of both the newspaper and its reading were new to the theoretical newspaper literature of the time. ”After the actual dissertation, eleven dedications and congratulations from fellow students and university professors, some of them longer, are printed.

reception

As was customary at the time, the text initially appeared only in Latin; the translation into German is contained on 18 pages as a facsimile in the anthology "The oldest writings for and against the newspaper" edited by Karl Kurth and published in 1944 by the Rohrer publishing house (Brno / Munich / Vienna). There is a new reprint in the volume “The earliest writings for and against the newspaper” (Baden-Baden 2015), edited by Jürgen Wilke . This was preceded by Werner Storz having found Peucer's work again in 1931 with his Leipzig dissertation on “The Beginnings of Newspaper Studies”. Then the Viennese classical philologist Josef Pavlu translated them into German. Karl Kurth added them to his collection in 1944. At that time, according to Kutsch, the main interest lay in being able to present "evidence of the anciency of the newspaper industry, which is still clearly striving for academic acceptance" with this publication.

Arnulf Kutsch sees Peucer's work today as follows: “It has received notable international attention in communication studies since the middle of the 20th century: The title of the South African journal, Ecquid Novi '(' Is there something new? ') Is a quote from this dissertation. She had already been quoted in Sweden in 1752. "

In the 1970s, interest in Peucer's dissertation continued to grow. "It was now understood more concisely than before as an important document of the newspaper debate, education and criticism of the newspapers that arose in the Early Enlightenment, and these in turn were understood as important structural elements of the emerging bourgeois public" (Kutsch). A few years later, Jürgen Wilke, Kutsch continues, “opened up a new dimension of reception, which recognizes in Peucer's dissertation an informative historical root of modern communication theories and also takes Peucer's remarks about entertainment into consideration. The direction expanded into the Anglo-Saxon-speaking area after Louis F. van Ryneveld, Latin lecturer at the University of the Free State, South Africa, translated Peucer's dissertation into English in 1999 ”. There are also translations into other languages.

Classification of work

According to Kutsch, it was “a topical journalistic topic at the time that Peucer was grappling with, and it was at the same time a politically, socially and ethically controversial problem, as some of the writings published since the mid-1670s showed, the authors of which, with some sharp arguments, both about debated the harmfulness as well as the usefulness of the new media and its consequences. "

That is why communication scientists like Wilke, Atwood and de Beer see “De relationibus novellis” as an early root of academic news research. Wilke has also stated that “Peucer was the first to give newspapers (news) the dignity of academic research. His name will therefore remain unforgettable in the annals of newspaper and journalism studies. "

“Peucer opened up,” explains Kutsch, “a seemingly modern, individual-based perspective of the consequences of the new printed medium at the end of the 17th century. He illustrated this view of a thoroughly ambivalent entertainment experience, which is significant in terms of communication science, with a quote from Cicero's 'Epistolae ad familiares' (5th book, 12th letter) ”. The secondary literature generally emphasizes the ideals and requirements for newspapers that are largely valid to this day, as Peucer put it.

Translations

Peucer's dissertation has been translated into at least three languages:

• translation to English
• Translation into Portuguese
• Translation into Romanian

literature

• Atwood, Roy A./de Beer, Arnold S .: The roots of academic news research. Tobias Peucer's, De relationibus novellis' (1690). In: Journalism Studies, 2nd year 2001, No. 4, pp. 485–469.
• Günter Bialowons: History of the German press from its beginnings to 1789 . Leipzig: Faculty of Journalism 1969, pp. 224–226.
• de Beer, Arnold S./van Ryneveld, Louis F./Schreiner, Wadim N .: Leipzig: From Tobias Peucer's De realtionibus novellis to Ecquid Novi (2000) . In: Ecquid Novi. African Journalism Studies, 21st year 2000, No. 1, pp. 6–61 (pp. 29–40 Latin text, pp. 41–60 English text).
• Kurth, Karl: A Swedish dissertation in Latin on the newspaper system from 1752. In: Zeitungswissenschaft, 17. Jg. 1942, No. 11/12, pp. 609–616.
• Kurth, Karl (ed.): The oldest writings for and against the newspaper. Brünn, Munich, Vienna 1944, pp. 87–112 (German text), pp. 163–184 (Latin text).
• Storz, Werner: The beginnings of newspaper customers. The German literature of the 17th and 18th centuries via the printed, periodical newspapers. Halle (Saale) 1931.
• Kutsch, Arnulf: The world's first dissertation on newspapers. On the 320th anniversary of Tobias Peucer's defense, De relationibus novellis'. In: The Rector of the University of Leipzig (ed.): Anniversaries 2010. People, events. Leipzig: University of Leipzig 2010, pp. 43–48.
• Jürgen Wilke : “De relationibus novellis.” The first dissertation on newspapers was written 300 years ago. In: Publizistik , 35th year 1990, No. 4, pp. 485-486.
• Wilke, Jürgen: On the history of journalistic quality. In: Hans-Jürgen Bucher, Klaus-Dieter Altmeppen (Ed.): Quality in journalism. Basics - dimensions - practical models. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag 2003, p. 37 ff. ( Https://books.google.de/books?id=vKVSvxiHeZgC&printsec=frontcover&hl=de#v=onepage&q&f=false )
• Wilke, Jürgen (ed.): The earliest writings for and against the newspaper: Christophorus Besold (1629), Ahasver Fritsch (1676), Christian Weise (1676), Tobias Peucer (1690), Hartmann (1679), Daniel Hartnack (1688 ) . Baden-Baden: Nomos 2015, ISBN 978-3-8487-2141-2 . ( http://www.nomos-shop.de/_assets/downloads/9783848721412_lese01.pdf )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Family tree of the Peucer family on ekrutt-11x179kuh-bln.de, accessed on June 29, 2017.
2. ↑ Kutsch, Arnulf: The world's first dissertation on newspapers. On the 320th anniversary of Tobias Peucer's defense, De relationibus novellis' . In: The Rector of the University of Leipzig (ed.): Anniversaries 2010. People, events. Leipzig 2010, pp. 43–48.
3. ↑ Digital collections »Explore by authors, list view» Tobias Peucer at Munich Digitization Center , accessed on June 29, 2017.
4. ↑ Kutsch, Arnulf: The world's first dissertation on newspapers. On the 320th anniversary of Tobias Peucer's defense, De relationibus novellis' . In: The Rector of the University of Leipzig (ed.): Anniversaries 2010. People, events. Leipzig 2010, p. 45.
5. ↑ Kutsch, Arnulf: The world's first dissertation on newspapers. On the 320th anniversary of Tobias Peucer's defense, De relationibus novellis' . In: The Rector of the University of Leipzig (ed.): Anniversaries 2010. People, events. Leipzig 2010, p. 44.
6. ^ Wilke, Jürgen: 'De relationibus novellis'. The first dissertation on newspapers was written 300 years ago. In: Publizistik, 35th year 1990, No. 4, p. 486.