The periodical publication of news for a mass audience — the first technology for synchronizing the attention of a large public around shared events, shaping political life, public opinion, and the modern concept of an informed citizenry from the 17th century through its displacement by digital media.
The newspaper invented something that had never existed before: a shared present. Before periodical news, people in the same city lived in informationally different worlds depending on who they knew and where they traveled. The newspaper gave strangers a common set of facts to argue about — or to be manipulated by. Every subsequent media technology, from radio to television to social media, has recapitulated the newspaper's central tension: between a platform that informs citizens and a platform that captures attention for someone's purposes.