The politics of rumours

Rumors are a politically charged communication phenomenon. Dramas from the Early Modern period to the beginning of the 19th century stage, reflect, and comment on this in illuminating ways. The political power of rumors is ambivalent: they can provoke uprisings but can also be deliberately used by governments. The political virulence of rumors was already recognized in the Early Modern period and was dramatically processed in Baroque tragedies. In a comprehensive study that combines communication-theoretical drama analyses with media, knowledge, and public history approaches, Elke Dubbels investigates how rumors are depicted as a communicative event in dramas from the mid-17th century to the early 19th century. Following a system-theoretically inspired concept of the public as "observed observation" (Schlögl), dramas are explored as a medium for reflecting political public life. The central question is how the plays stage rumors and relate to the public they depict. It becomes evident that the dramas examined not only sensitize their readers to the political significance of rumors and distance themselves from them by presenting alternative models of communication. Rather, they also partially engage performatively in the rumor-driven battles of opinion they portray.