The Press in the Light of Modern Capitalism: A planned survey by Max Weber on newspapers and journalism

The first half of the 1910s were a crucial turning period for Max Weber's thought. Whereas he had initially considered the question of the emergence of modern capitalism in relation to religious ethics, he started to link the study of contemporary capitalism with that of a variety of other domains–law, music, and the press. With regard to the latter he sought to set up a broad survey in the context of the creation of the German Sociological Society. This paper narrates the story of the formulation of the survey plan and the failure of the project, before setting out to unravel the relation which Weber seems to have wanted to ascertain, between the 'information economy' and the economy itself.