The Print Media Revolution

The Print Media Revolution While paper and block printing developed in China around 100 C.E. and 1045, respectively, what we recognize as modern printing did not emerge until the middle of the fifteenth century. At that time in Germany, Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of movable metallic type and the printing press ushered in the modern print era. Printing presses and publications then spread rapidly across Europe in the late 1400s and early 1500s. Early on, many books were large, elaborate, and expensive. It took months to illustrate and publish these volumes, and they were usually purchased by wealthy aristocrats, royal families, church leaders, prominent merchants, and powerful politicians. Gradually, however, printers reduced the size and cost of books, making them available and affordable to more people. Books eventually became the first mass-marketed products in history. The printing press combined three elements necessary for mass-market innovation. First, machine duplication replaced the tedious […]

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Oral and Written Eras in Communication

In most early societies, information and knowledge first circulated slowly through oral traditions passed on by poets, teachers, and tribal storytellers. As alphabets and the written word emerged, however, a manuscript, or written, culture began to develop and eventually overshadowed oral communication. Documented and transcribed by philosophers, monks, and stenographers, the manuscript culture served the ruling classes. Working people were generally illiterate, and the economic and educational gap between rulers and the ruled was vast. These eras of oral and written communication developed slowly over many centuries. Although exact time frames are disputed, historians generally consider these eras as part of Western civilization’s premodern period, spanning the epoch from roughly 1000 B.C.E. to the mid-fifteenth century. Early tensions between oral and written communication played out among ancient Greek philosophers and writers. Socrates (470–399 B.C.E.), for instance, made his arguments through public conversations and debates. Known as the Socratic method, this […]

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Praise for Media & Culture

Media & Culture is a solid, thorough, and interesting text. I will be a stronger mass communication instructor for having  and Culture read this text. MYLEEA D. HILL, ARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY Media & Culture is the best survey text of the current crop. The writing is well constructed and does not talk down to the students. STEVE MILLER, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY   Media & Culture’s critical approach to the history, theory, economy, technology, and regulation of the various mass media helps students become critical users of the media. SHIO NAM, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH FLORIDA Media & Culture is media literacy meets mass communication— it really connects the two, something we should all be focusing on. WENDY NELSON, PALOMAR COLLEGE   I think the Campbell text is outstanding. It is a long-overdue media text that is grounded in pressing questions about American culture and its connection to the techniques and institutions of […]

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