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Rodger Streitmatter, in "Mightier than the Sword", brings a matter that I have never payed attention to. He points out that history has been shaped by News Media for at least five hundred years. In order to validate his point of view about how important and influential the news media is upon the society, he put together fifteen episodes in history in which news media played a critical role.
In "Sowing the Seeds of revolution", he shows how the political background of the American Revolution had a great impact on the social and economic aspects. As usual, money is one of the reason that people get into disagreements; consequently, cutting costs and/or not raising enough money to satisfy everyone is the reason of the the changes in the colonial way to think.
As the ideas of independece started to appear among the people, Sam Adams with his purpose of building enough opposition used the "Journal of Occurences" as a mean to take people to their limits and explore the idea of freedom from the British. Therefore, he started defaming the British soldiers by posting how they were mistreating the law-abiding citizens. Also, he posted about their brutalities against women, even though they were not truth, he got people to read what he has to say. As a result, radical patriots reported immediately on the violence of the Boston Massacre leading the soldiers to leave Boston.
Tom Paine came along with his inspiring words leading to the final and decisive phase of the revolution. In Common Sense, he would argue that "men and women not only deserved, but were obligated as citizens of the human race, to demand much more." (17) Besides opening people's eyes againg the British monarchy and constitution, he inspired soldiers of the Continental Army to keep on fighting for their freedom what led them to the victory in the Trenton. His words not only made people to commite themselves to social causes but also changed the track of our history.
