How the Printing Press Changed Everything
Time is a strange thing. In the year 2020, there are thousands of different ways to find answers to our questions. We pull out our computers or phones, google our questions, and boom — we instantly find what we are looking for. While we are typing into our google search, we never stop to think about how easy it all is. I have typed this whole paragraph without wondering what word is going to come next. We never stop and consider that there was once a time when words were not even really words, they were just sounds and rhythms.
Joshua Myrowitz (2008) article, “Media Evolution and Cultural Change’’, talks about the “Four Eras”: traditional oral cultures, the transitional scribal phase, modern print culture, and postmodern global electronic culture. Myrowitz takes the macrolevel medium theory and outlines these phases in order to understand the evolution of cultural forms. Similar to that, Michael Soha’s reading, “Technology & Social Change: Four Major Eras”, seeks out the patterns in the four major era’s: Tribal/Oral society, Civilizing/Scribal phase, Modern era, and Postmodern era. With his descriptions, the reader can clearly see how we have evolved over the course of human history when it comes to oral communication, writing, print/mass media, and electronic-digital devices. The Oral/Tribal era and the Scribal/Civilizing phase had many things in common, but they differed in some dominant communication.
In the Oral/Tribal era, for example, the people only knew how to practice oral communication. While in the Scribal Era, they were still orally communicating, but they also took up writing. Overall, the biggest difference between these two eras was oral communication and writing. In regards to religion, in the Oral/Tribal era, religion was passed down through songs and rhymes. There was no true way to preserve the ancient religions because there was no written document for proof. It makes sense that everyone in your village or tribe practiced the same religion because no one knew any better. In the Scribal Era, religion was a dominant source of morality, controlled by powerful religious hierarchy. Different religions appear in this era, such as monitheistic religions, Islam, Judaism, Christiantity, etc. Since writing was becoming more known, religion started to become more consistent; there was not as much room for error.
In the 14th century, Johannes Gutenberg, a German craftsman, invented something that started the scientific revolution and gave us the high tech life we have today: the printing press. In the beginning, the printing press was a great success with the Bishops and church, because the bibles and breviaries needed to be printed in bulk. The real best seller was indulgences, or a piece of paper that basically excused you or lowered your punishment from creating sin or doing something “bad.” When Martin Luther came around and demanded change, he had his list of reformulated tenets copied and reprinted so his friends could give them out in different parts of Germany; almost everybody in Europe had a copy within the month. Printing spread the revolution faster than anyone thought possible. Information was able to be sent out to thousands of people within hours. New “do it yourself” books were being published focusing on fashion, pottery, toolhanding, etc. It was printing that made knowledge so powerful. People back then did not need to sing a song or rhyme to learn, all they needed to do was read a book. Overtime, books were filled with modern, up to date facts and tools, making basically everything that was told from word of mouth from older generations unreliable. The printing press truly was a revolutionary, transformational communication technology.
From Tribal/Oral Societies to the Civilizing World/Scribal Phases, there has been a ton of growth. For something to be a fact once relied on someone’s experience, but now it means something more accurate. The printing press transformed communication technology in a way that no one thinks about. I have typed this whole blog post on my computer keyboard, looking back through my notes of facts that I got from reliable sources. All of the information that we get on the internet would not be possible without the printing press. So much of who we are as people, the jobs every single person holds, would not be possible without the printing press, and we can thank Johannes Gutenberg for that.
