the significance of telegraph

[mei]

Hi,

I got some difficulty in understanding the underlined paragraph. Could anyone do me a favor?


Six New York newspapers organized themselves into a monopolistic cooperative to launch the Associated Press, a wire service devoted to providing equal access for its members to news from one another and more importnatly, from sources in distant sites. News reports, which had previously travelled by horse and boat took on an enhanced degree of timeliness which had far-reaching implications for the redefinition of a public sphere. This point was underscored by Bennett of the New York Herald when he commented on the significance of the telegraph for the political public sphere:

This means of communication will have a prodigious, cohesive, and conservative influence on the republic. No better bond of union for a great confederacyof states could have be devised...The whole nation is impressed with the same idea at the same moment. One feeling and one impulse are thus created and maintained from te center of the land to its uttermost extremities.

Thanks a lot. :wink:

Mei

[RonBee]

The telegraph was a revolutionary means of communication by which all parts of the country could receive the news at the same time. Unlike in previous times, different parts of the country would be discussing the same issues at the same time. This would have a unifying effect. All parts of the country would, in effect, be occupying the same time frame. The telegraph would have an enormous impact on how the country conducted its daily business.

8)

[mei]

Hi, Ronbee, thank you for your help.

Mei

[RonBee]

You're quite welcome. :)

8)