Abstract: The study analyzes the consequences of the emerging mass press for the Social Democratic Party of Germany with regard to the value of freedom of speech. It discusses how one of the largest and most successful political parties at that time dealt with the increasing significance of mass media as part of society’s functional differentiation in the late 19th century. In view of a more or less differentiated media system, public visibility became a main resource for actors in the German Empire as well as in other Western societies to legitimize t...
(read more)