"A journal among them" : colonial discourse and the creation of an imaginary community in the Graham's Town Journal, 1831-36
type: CreativeWork
description: This dissertation is a study of the discourse of the Graham's Town Journal in the years 1831 to 1836. An example of early Cape journalism, the Journal was established in the eastern Cape by L.H. Meurant, and owned and operated soon thereafter by R. Godlonton. The Journal was a means to represent and order a changing colonial world for an emerging middle-class merchant elite during the period of the emergence of colonial order in the eastern Cape. Through investigation of the major themes of the newspaper's discourse in this early period of its history, the dissertation highlights the imaginary sense of community and corresponding body of colonial knowledge that evolved on a weekly basis in its pages, and by which its readers projected their dreams and aspirations as to how the eastern Cape should be colonized.
abstract: This dissertation is a study of the discourse of the Graham's Town Journal in the years 1831 to 1836. An example of early Cape journalism, the Journal was established in the eastern Cape by L.H. Meurant, and owned and operated soon thereafter by R. Godlonton. The Journal was a means to represent and order a changing colonial world for an emerging middle-class merchant elite during the period of the emergence of colonial order in the eastern Cape. Through investigation of the major themes of the newspaper's discourse in this early period of its history, the dissertation highlights the imaginary sense of community and corresponding body of colonial knowledge that evolved on a weekly basis in its pages, and by which its readers projected their dreams and aspirations as to how the eastern Cape should be colonized.
author: McKend, Robert Andrew
language: eng
date published: 1997
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:22:38Z
provider: University of Cape Town
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Department of Historical Studies

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/19816