Notes from Chapter 12: Society and Technological Change

The ideas and examples referenced below are notes compiled by Robert Keel from his reading of Volti, Rudi. 2014. Society and Technological Change. 7th edition. New York, NY: Worth Publishers. They are intended for classroom use.

• Of all technologies, perhaps none have had the greatest impact as printing.
  • Storage and communication of information.
  • The Egyptian Hieratic script was developed and used in parallel with the hieroglyphic script and used for everyday purposes such as keeping records and accounts and writing letters.
  • Social effects, too.
• The development of a written language is one of the hallmarks of civilization.
  • Spoken language is a characteristic of all societies, yet not all have written language.
  • Many cultures that have written language have only developed this recently, and often because of the influence of other societies (missionaries, etc.).
• A written language is an essential technology.
  • Keeping accounts.
  • Recording history.
  • Facilitating communication.
  • Transmission of ideas and culture.
  • Created and extended the influence and power of one group over others (information control).

"Much that red men know, they forget; they have no way to preserve it . White men make what they know fast on paper like catching a wild animal and taming it." Sequoyah (Cherokee Indian who developed written language for his tribe)(in Volti page 225)

The Printing Revolution

• Effects of written language were minimal when it was understood only by a few people.
• Before written language, humans developed astonishing memories to record events.
• Introduction of printing with moveable type — originated in Asia.
  • 4^th century A.D. — Chinese copying stone inscriptions with paper rubbings.
  • 7^th century A.D. — Chinese used carved wood blocks.
• Printing moved much slower through Europe.
  • 1400 — Italy-- playing cards and pictures of saints made from wooden blocks.
• Johann Gutenberg (15th century)— developed workable system of printing with separate pieces of type.
• Printing books required more advanced technology than just printing a single page.
• More advanced inks and binding methods emerged.
• Books printed from moveable type were harbingers to the age of mass production.

Printing and the Expansion of Knowledge

• Printing, in particular books, did much to transform European society (see also).
• Allowed for the transmission of ideas.
• Allowed for more accurate map making and navigation.
• Allowed for the advance of science — data could be recorded more accurately.
• Literacy spread.

• The circulation of books allowed for people to collective challenge the dominant Catholic order.
• The Protestant Reformation (see also)resulted: The printed bible (in vernacular languages) allowed worshipers to seek God’s word directly rather than through the Church which was the traditional intercessor:
  • "God’s highest and extremest act of grace, whereby the business of the Gospel is driven forward" Martin Luther on the invention of printing (in Volti page 230).
• The Catholic Church also used the printed word to transmit its message, but not to the extent of the Protestant Church.
• This was not only a religious revolution, but also a political one--reading in one's own language led to increasing nationalism.
  • The unifying power of the Catholic Church dissolved (sometimes through force) and nations emerged.
  • Printing helped standardize languages and dialects slowly faded away (the spread of Mandarin).

• Protestants, motivated by biblical reading, became quite literate.
• The people, however, most driven to read were the clergy--"benefit of clergy."
  • Protected members of the clergy from certain punishment.
  • 51st psalm--"neck verse." If a person could read it, they would be spared the gallows. Some tried to "beat the system" by memorizing.
• Books still very expensive and somewhat rare.
• A more literate society could begin to ponder new ideas, especially those relating to social change: mass schooling.
  • John Amos Comenius.
• The relationship between printing and social change is reciprocal--one does not cause the other, but rather, both influence the other.
  • Korea:
    • Invented movable type independently and had phonetic alphabet, but few books printed until end of 19th century.
    • Aristocracy preferred Chinese characters--difficulty learning maintained their distinction from commoners.
    • Authors did not use the more accessible Hangul. Printing failed to have significant effect on Korean society.
  • Europe:
    • Socio-cultural conditions led to strong demand for printed products.
    • Technological improvements allowed for mass printing.
    • Not purely technological determinism--no sudden revolution: by the mid-18th century, male illiteracy at 40%, female at 60%.

• Printing resulted in a greater sense of one’s separateness from the rest of society.
• Reading is a solitary activity. The concept of the "self" is rarely found in illiterate cultures.
• Marshall McLuhan --"The medium is the message."
  • Printed books fundamentally altered societies not solely from the ideas transmitted, but the medium itself altered the way we look at the world.
  • Reading requires us to think in a sequential manner, just as a sentence is read from left to right.
  • Produces an egocentric world view.
  • Leads to Newtonian view of the universe, fixed pricing, and "detribalization."
  • "Single point of view" (affects painting styles, 3-D perspective versus flatness of medieval painting--there, figures arranged and sized based on importance).

Newspapers

• For centuries, the book was the end product of the printing press.
• First newspaper appeared in the 17^th century in Europe. In USA: The Boston News-Letter in 1704.
• First newspapers — poor type, hard to read, contained more sensational news than actual news.
• Again, one technology is often driven by the development of other technologies: Industrial Revolution.
  • Steam powered press: The Bauer Press in 1812 (and Friedrick Koenig’s “steam printing machine”).
    • New process; from manually pressing to steam-powered rotating cylinder. 3 times faster than by hand (1000 sheets per hour).
    • Rolled paper and two-sided printing
    • Better inks and paper from wood-pulp.
    • Later (1846), cylinder to hold the type. By 1860 presses were capable of 20,000 impressions per hour (printing now).
    • Development of the stereotype plate--allowed multiple pages of type on cylinders--2 cylinder press printing 8 page paper with each "turn." By 1890: 48,000 12-page papers per hour.
    • 1886: Mergenthaler's Linotype machine--automated typesetting
• Steam ships and railroads: getting reporters to the scene.
• News is transmitted back through the use of telegraphs (shortened stories, too).
• Trans-Atlantic cable connected USA and Europe: 1858--message took 17 hours. With second cable in 1865, speed increased by 80 times.
• Newspapers gain relevance as worthy news becomes available.

Circulation Wars and The Shaping of Public Opinion

• Mass production of newspapers made them more affordable from 6 cents in 1830 to 1 penny in 1837.
• Newspaper readership increases as cost decreases. In the USA, 1870: 2.6 million papers a day, by 1900--15 million.
• Newspapers become important vehicle for shaping public opinion, but "yellow journalism" was the rule.
• New York Journal (William Randolph Hearst) favored involvement in Spanish American War 1898.
  • Newspapers did not cause war, but sensational stories reported did not help avert war.
• Other factors contributing to the rise of newspaper readers:

"Also, Urbanization and immigration produced large concentrations of population from which a mass readership could be drawn. Finally, a more democratic social order generated an environment in which the ‘common man’ gained in political and economic importance; as the first of the mass media, newspapers were a natural outgrowth of ‘mass society’" (Volti pages 236-237)

• So, once again, technology and social forces work in a reciprocal manner to produce change:
  • Printing technology: literacy, commerce, democracy.
  • Economic, social, political, and cultural forces stimulated the development of new printing technologies.

Questions (pages 237-238):

1. Do statements that appear in print seem more true than those that are presented through some other medium? Why?
2. One of the major trends in the world today is the spread of literacy. In many parts of the world, only a small percentage of the population could read a generation ago; today, the majority of the population is literate. What sort of social, political, and economic effects will this produce? Will all of them be good?
3. Some social critics are of the opinion that the spread of the electronic media is destroying literacy. Standardized test scores of reading and writing ability have in fact gone down in recent years. Are the new media the main cause? If so, is the slow destruction of the printed media by the electronic media necessarily a bad thing?
4. Lurid newspaper stories helped to fan a conflict between Spain and the United States that ultimately led to war. The Vietnam War, another overseas conflict involving the United States, met with a great deal of opposition, due in part to the continual presentation of that war on television. Marshall McLuhan would have thought this significant. Can you imagine why? Can you think of any fundamental differences between newspaper accounts of a war and those presented on television?
5. It is sometimes asserted that books, newspapers, and magazines are doomed, and that digital technologies in the form of e-books, tablets, and smartphones will soon displace them. Do you agree? Do conventional printed materials have a future? What, if any, advantages do they have over digital media?
   

Chapter 13