ABSTRACT
Some believe press influence was limited by the rate of newspaper mortality during the war, as well as publishing constraints such as paper shortages and lack of available labor. The press fulfills its information role when media inform and entertain citizens with common content that, in turn, creates the common experiences and frames of reference that serve as the foundation of national identity. The press is the mechanism through which that national comradeship is forged, for it communicates the rituals, the values, even the metaphorical "secret handshakes," that represent the dimensions of the bonds known only to the members themselves. As the information conduit that ran between the Confederate people and their leaders, the press had an important hand in the attempt to build the Confederate nation. Historians have discounted the role of the Confederate press in contributing to Confederate nationalism, claiming that the newspapers lacked sufficient circulation and resources to influence much of anything, including public opinion.
