During the early 1800s, the telegraph had been an efficient method of instant communication before the invention of the telephone. As a matter of fact, the telegraph may have only affected those who lived in the city rather than rural areas simply because it did not cover a large enough range. Its usefulness was mostly spent on allowing businessmen and bankers to have more private transactions, giving the government an opportunity to control what is said in the public, and spreading news coverage from one country to another. However, those who lacked in either the money or time to use the telegraph were excluded from hearing any news until someone wrote about it. In a sense, some of the general public was kept outside of the loop of information …show more content…
On a positive note, journalists were able to cover “a summary of all the significant events of the day, from all over the world, in a single edition” (Standage, 152). From a political perspective, this means that the government could quickly change the views of the public by presenting other countries as an ally or enemy. While this might have been true, the idea itself is a double-edged sword. The people who lived in cities could receive news within a day or two, which might cause some upset if an accident that traced back to political officials were to occur. During wars in different countries, governments were able to become more informed about the activity of their militaries through daily updates. However, US and British governments refused to share their information through telegraph as they “realized the dangers of revealing too much information” with the public or other countries (Standage, 155). Therefore, those countries kept to more private means of communication rather than openly sending messages until intercepted by an enemy. Although some governments were efficient internationally and politically with regards to the telegraph, businesses were able to truly gain the most out of communicating through more private