The revolution of the printing press was a device for applying pressure to an inked surface using moveable handset block letters resting on paper or cloth and acting to transfer the image.
Had replaceable and moveable letters.
The invention remained largely unchanged until 300 years later when computer control became the norm.
Prior to Benjamin Franklin, Johannes Gutenberg (A german blacksmith) was the first in Western Europe to develop a press.
The first known press was invented in 1450.
By 1500 there was 250 places in Europe that had presses. By 1500, 13 million books were out in circulation.
In 1833 the US rotary printing press meant millions of copies on a page in a single day - on rolled paper.
In 1884 the Linotype machine allowed for steam powered presses to be installed and used that meant much faster printing could be completed.
The effects of the Printing Press
The printing press changed a few things, allowed for the mass dissemination of ideas. Print allowed readers with a low position in the social and cultural hierarchy to study religious texts for themselves.
Marshall McLuhan told of the shift from predominantly an oral culture to print culture. He says the affects was the nature of how the human consciousness in the print represented an abstraction of thought.
Censorship
The press standardised and preserved knowledge. The Catholic Church had an index of Prohibited Books. It was a printed catalogue of books forbidden to be read.
Problems with information management.
There was a rise in different occupation e.g. clerks, book-keepers, notaries, public writers, postmen.
Public Opinion
Newspapers contributed to the rise in public opinion (first recorded in France 1750, in English in 1781)
The printed image contributed to the natural sciences of astronomy, geography and anatomy.
Was the printing press a revolution?
Took place over three centuries. Illiteracy - populace still emerging from the Dark Ages. Was it the agent of change or a catalyst (like TV) assisting social changes.
Growth of the railway mean the distribution of newspapers (could reach regional areas on the day of printing)
100,000 copies a day from Lloyd's Weekly News & News of the World.
Commercialisation
It was profitable. Bestsellers as early as 1500 - The Imitation of Christ. Advertising appeared in print - around 1650 a news paper would carry six ads on average. A hundred years later it was about 50.
In 1792, 15 million newspapers were sold.
If half of Boston's citizens brought a newspaper three times a week, a publisher could become a millionaire.
The power of news
Censorship followed. Cromwell after the beheading of King Charles 1, tried to suppress the newsheets but failed.
During the Civil Ware in 1642 news became known as propaganda.
The Journalist
The word came into use in 1693. Daniel Defoe is considered the world's first journalist. The earliest journalists were called 'runner patterers' - They would run from thte courthouse or gallows to the newspapers offices with 'true confessions' from the condemned.
No comments:
Post a Comment