In the Neighborhood-World. News Circulation and Information Expansion in 19th Century Buenos Aires Newspapers

Abstract

This article explores notions of the outside world offered to the readers of the Buenos Aires press in the last four decades of the 19th Century, paying special attention to the effect of the submarine cables in the access to international news. Focusing on three newspapers that were known for their modernizing bent (La Tribuna, La Prensa and La Nación), it analyzes the underlying logics of news circulation that allowed for the expansion in the spatial coverage. It argues that the great expansion of international news occurred at the end of the century modified the spatial horizon in ways that were contradictory, combining the intensification of certain areas and the blurring of others, while creating an overall consciousness of the world that stemmed from the synchronic presence of numerous point of the planet.