Early modern newspapers and regional identity in the North of the Dutch Republic, circa 1740-1800

From the second half of the eighteenth century onwards, the inhabitants of the northern provinces of the Dutch Republic had their own newspapers at their disposal. The province of Stad en Lande (Groningen) boasted the (Opregte) Groninger Courant (from 1743 onwards) and the Ommelander Courant (1787); in Frisia the Leeuwarder Courant (1752) and Friesche Courant (1795) were published. This article deals with the question to what extent these newspapers might have stimulated feelings of being connected with the own region among their regional audiences. It will be argued that initially the news content of the newspapers were no cause for stirring much feeling of regional belonging, as most of the news articles were on foreign matters. The papers published hardly any news on the region. This changed during the final decades of the eighteenth century. From that moment, the northern press contributed increasingly to its readers’ knowledge of developments and events that happened in or were relevant to their own surroundings. This regional colouring of the newspapers’ content was achieved mainly in two ways: on the one hand through the advertisements and announcements that entrepreneurs and private persons from the own region published, and on the other through notices published by local and provincial authorities. In other words, from all the items published in the newspapers of Groningen and Frisia, advertisements and announcements had the greatest impact on the generation of knowledge of the own area, and subsequently on the involvement of its audience with affairs within their own region