Studies on the official newspaper of the Portuguese State

The Gazeta de Lisboa, precursor of the current Diário da República, was created in 1715, by private initiative but under royal privilege. It was the first Portuguese newspaper with an official character, due to the control exercised by the State and the contents that it was required to publish, such as decrees, appointments and news about the royal family. However, these ‘official’ news, while present in almost all issues, represented at this inaugural stage a small fraction of the newspaper’s contents, which preferred to focus on international issues. This article seeks to explain the long process of transformation and affirmation of the official character of this publication, considering its successive titles and structural changes, until its full submission to the State’s control, abandoning its mixed nature and publishing exclusively legal and administrative acts, and becoming a pillar of the Rule of Law. [article originally published in População e Sociedade, vol. 32, pp. 1-23. Porto: CEPESE, 2019. ISSN: 2184-5263]

The Portuguese ‘official’ periodical press began with the publication of the Gazeta de Lisboa in 1715 and would indelibly mark the entire eighteenth century. However, its origins date back to the time of the Restoration Wars (1640-1668) and, more remotely, to the ‘periodic’ publications that circulated until the turn of the seventeenth to the eighteenth century. Thus, it is important to address the relevance of these ‘periodical’ titles, in order to understand the foundations of the official press, which encompass an editorial context that is still little known. [article originally published in População e Sociedade, vol. 32, pp. 24-50. Porto: CEPESE, 2019. ISSN: 2184-5263]

The creation of an «Official Gazette» in Brazil, dedicated to the dissemination and, therefore, the legitimation of governmental acts, dates from 1862, when a journal with these characteristics began to circulate uninterruptedly until the present time, currently in digital format. Prior to the appearance of this official vehicle, the publication of governmental acts was done through various newspapers, some of them with ties to the instituted powers, others of a totally private nature, considering, as its origin, the year 1808, when Brazil became the headquarters of the Portuguese monarchy and was created the official press, which led to the publication of the Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro, following the Lisbon Gazette. This article aims to analyse this historical process, which went through different conjunctures, but with a strong dose of political, social and cultural permanencies. From this perspective, it seeks to relate conjunctures and meanings, analysing not only the issue of information, but also factors related to readability and to the transparency of the political-administrative process. An important historical source, the Diário da União (current name of the publication) is still a virgin ground for research and there is no doubt that its study, considering the said and the unsaid, will decisively contribute to the rewriting of the history of Brazil. [article originally published in População e Sociedade, vol. 32, pp. 51-64. Porto: CEPESE, 2019. ISSN: 2184-5263]

In this paper I review the history of the London Gazette from its foundation in 1665 to the late eighteenth century. I consider the paper’s foundation, form and frequency, circulation, sale and distribution, content (looking at news, notices and advertisements), readers, its reuse in other publications and its current availability. My aim is to chart what we already know about the Gazette’s history as well as to suggest some future directions for research. I also make a few observations about the Gazette’s later history. [article originally published in População e Sociedade, vol. 32, pp. 65-80. Porto: CEPESE, 2019. ISSN: 2184-5263]

The United States did not have a federal gazette or the equivalent for decades due to some unique characteristics of the people and the organization put in place after the American Revolution. An inherent fear of a potentially powerful and corrupt government led to an avoidance of official media, which in turn led to delays and confusion over executive rules and orders. In addition, the original design of the federal government did not anticipate a large and powerful executive branch that would be issuing orders, rules, and regulations. While the legislative branch did publish its activities in the Congressional Record, no such completion of actions by the many executive offices existed, leading to a great deal of confusion. Finally, in the 1930s, an unusual set of hidden lobbying within the judicial, executive, and ultimately the legislative branches of government brought about the overdue genesis of the United States’ Federal Register. [article originally published in População e Sociedade, vol. 32, pp. 81-98. Porto: CEPESE, 2019. ISSN: 2184-5263]

The Boletín Oficial del Estado is considered to be the result of the evolution of the gazettes that appeared around the 17^th century and they soon became directly dependents on the government. The State’s Official Bulletins were used as a communication vehicle, to transmit information that benefitted the government, ignoring the information that was contrary to its interests. The growing complexity of the state forced it to increase the number of publications containing legislation, while it became necessary to publicise it, in order to raise awareness and make it enforceable. This is the time when the gazettes began their transitional journey to become the Boletines Oficiales. In modern times, with the emergence of new technologies and the internet in particular, these publications began a new stage that is characterised by its online development and the near disappearance of printed edition. This is precisely what this article is about: the evolution of the States’s Official Bulletin from the origins to the present. [article originally published in População e Sociedade, vol. 32, pp. 99-116. Porto: CEPESE, 2019. ISSN: 2184-5263]

Article no.73 of the Italian Republic’s Constitution expects an inseparable connection between the correct writing of a regulatory act and its knowledge by citizens, that is, its divulgation through the Official Journal as a requirement for an always major participation in politics. In the last years, thanks to the spread of informatics technologies, we can consider the long and complex journey started in 1797 with the Gazzetta Piemontese in Sardinia Kingdom, and continued, from 1861 to 1946, with the Gazzetta Ufficiale del Regno d’Italia, to be finally over. Through its long life, it has experienced major changes and the idea that prevailed was that the ‘Official Journal’ had to give notice of the laws and regulatory acts announcement, which were to be known in full in the «Raccolta degli atti di Governo». In Italian set of rules, it’s now custom the principle of the ‘double publication’ and both official forms of publication have legal validity. [article originally published in População e Sociedade, vol. 32, pp. 117-131. Porto: CEPESE, 2019. ISSN: 2184-5263]

The Journal Officiel de la République Française was born in 1868, at the end of the Second French Empire, under an authoritarian system longing for the direct control over all communication emanated by the government. However, since 1789, France had an official gazette, known as Moniteur Universel, which published the decisions of the new Parliament, the Assemblée National, which became the Assemblée Nationale Constituante. From 1789 to 1868, the Moniteur Universel played the role of France official newspaper, whatever the regime, but it was held by a private publisher, whose independence ended up annoying the Government, which decided to create its own official communication instrument, the Journal Officiel. After the fall of Napoleon III and the establishment of the Third Republic, Le Temps was often used and considered as the unofficial newspaper of the government. In the same way, the Havas agency, greatly subsidized in the 1930s, became a kind of semiofficial agency before being nationalized in 1945. Finally, the creation of the Documentation française, that year, reinforced the communication from public authorities which, together with AFP (Agence France-Presse) and ORTF (Office de la Radio-Télévision Française), were now able to truly control information. With the legalization of free radio in 1981, the creation of private television channels in 1986 and the reduction of state powers in the 1990s, this two-centuries old inherited system of state power building began to disappear. [article originally published in População e Sociedade, vol. 32, pp. 132-143. Porto: CEPESE, 2019. ISSN: 2184-5263]

This paper aims to highlight some aspects of the organic and evolution of Portuguese consular services between the mid-1800s, after the Regeneration, until the end of the Constitutional Monarchy. The production of Consular Regulations and their contextualization is one of the first questions to be analyzed, as they provide a normative framework that reflects the growing organization and relevance of consular representation abroad; still at this level, a brief comparative analysis with Brazil is established. After the reorganization of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1869, one seeks to understand the reorganization of 1891 and its repercussions on consular services. Finally, the potentialities of the Government Gazette as a privileged source for the study of consular issues are underlined, giving particular importance to the consular staff and posts from various angles of research. [article originally published in População e Sociedade, vol. 32, pp. 144-156. Porto: CEPESE, 2019. ISSN: 2184-5263]

This article analyses the news from foreign States published in the official newspaper of the Portuguese State, addressing two distinct moments that correspond to the inaugural and final stages of this type of news in the mentioned periodical: the Gazeta de Lisboa, in 1715-1716, and the Diário de Lisboa, in 1868. The main goal is to demonstrate the role of the Portuguese official newspaper, which over the years has assumed different titles, as a repository of news relating to other countries. The analysis of news content allows us to identify both the themes and States that appear most frequently in each of these moments, as well as the sources used and the style adopted in their writing. From the research produced, it can be concluded that the Portuguese official newspaper followed the evolution of the periodical press in the considered periods, regarding both the writing style and the concern with the accuracy of the sources, and that, due to the quantity and diversity of foreign news, it is a fundamental source for the study of the history of international relations. [article originally published in População e Sociedade, vol. 32, pp. 157-181. Porto: CEPESE, 2019. ISSN: 2184-5263]

Taking advantage of the research potential of the DIGIGOV website, this study focuses on the Portuguese Official Gazette as a source for the study of Portuguese emigration to Brazil in the second half of the 19th century, with the aim of identifying the information available on its pages in the scope of this theme, and, based on its analysis, present research clues that can foster new studies. Since parliamentary debates and legislation on emigration, although abundantly present in the official newspaper of the Portuguese State, are available in other platforms and have already been the subject of other studies, our attention focused on another type of information, less homogeneous but of interest to this theme, particularly the official information produced by ministries and the Portuguese consular services in Brazil, and on the information produced by the captaincies of sea ports. In addition, judicial edicts and declarations, reports and notices published by individuals, associations and private companies on the final pages of the official newspaper are also analysed.

This article interprets the discourse of King Manuel II in the context of the final crisis of the Portuguese constitutional monarchy. This interpretation is based on a theorization that interconnects three problems: History as a bridge between the past and the present, the ability of political leaders to manage the paradox of truth in their discourses, and the importance of charismatic leadership. Based on this theorization, the article intends to answer two questions: was King Manuel II’s first speech in the parliament emotionally empathetic and demonstrative of an innovative movement? Did the speech get to create a good political illusion in the face of the severe crisis of the Portuguese monarchy? [article originally published in População e Sociedade, vol. 32, pp. 182-203. Porto: CEPESE, 2019. ISSN: 2184-5263]

In this work, the concepts of “official newspaper” and “political regime” are explicitly interrelated for the first time in the Portuguese scientific literature, taking as a case study the Portuguese experience in the 200-year period from the publication of the first edition of the Diário do Governo, in 1820 – one of the first decisions of the emerging liberal regime –, to the present time. It seeks to understand how the two concepts are mutually involved in the political process, covering both the political dimension of the official newspaper’s use by the political regime and the legal process of publicizing official acts. It studies the continuities in the historical process of consolidating the idea of the existence of an official newspaper aimed at publicizing the main acts of public authorities, but also the disruptions caused in this relationship by the political and social evolution, namely through the recognition of the right of universal and free access to the official newspaper.