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Notes Lectures Media culture in Transformation
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Notes Lectures Media culture in Transformation
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Week 1: Print – SpeechHow (not) to make sense of historical transformations in media culture
Walter J. Ong writes in his book Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the World how
Greek philosopher Plato thinks about the media technology: writing. “Plato’s Socrates urges,
writing destroys memory. Those who use writing will become forgetful, relying on an external
resource for what they lack in internal resources.” Plato assumes that writing destroys
memory, or in other words, he assumes that a technology (writing) determines human
behavior and cognitive faculties (memory). Determines implies that there is a simplistic
cause-and-effect relation: writing is the single cause of a certain effect. This is called
technological determinism, which is the reductive assumption that a society’s technology
determines the development of its social structure and cultural values, but also behavior like
memory. The assumption is reductive in a sense that the complexity of historic advances
reduces.
Besides technological determinism, there is also social determinism, in which social
interactions and cultural traditions are the single and determining cause for individual and
collective use of technology. Social determinism is not only historically wrong but can also be
highly racist. At the end of the 19th century, typewriters were invented by Remington and
Olivetti. Both companies claimed the typewriter to be universally adaptable to all cultures
and an important innovation that contributed to the process of modern societies. These
claims to universality, however, came up against a problem: certain languages resisted the
adaptation of the typewriter. For most of these languages the typewriter could be modified,
but the only language for which no solution was found was Chinese. Western companies
were unable to adapt the typewriters and thus blamed the Chinese culture. According to
them, the Chinese script was unmodern and insufficient, and their culture was backward and
could not possibly keep up with modern process. These statements were expressed through
caricature. The value of their culture was determined by whether certain components of that
culture, such as the script, were compatible with modern technologies, and that is what
social determinism does. The underlying logic of social determinism is that culture or parts of
the culture, in this case the Chinese script, is thought to be the only cause that determines
whether that culture can adapt a certain technology, in this case the typewriter, or not.
Speech – Print
Through the conceptual pair of speech and print we can understand a moment of long
historical change. This change is from oral cultures to literate cultures.
Ca. 1440s Invention of the printing press.
1517s Martin Luther publishes “95 theses”.
1534s Luther prints the first full German translation of the Bible.
1539s Printing of the “Great Bible”, first English translation of the Bible.
Ca. 1550s 12% of Dutch population is literate.
1600s Printed newspapers and pamphlets, and the novel.
Ca. 1750s 85% of Dutch population is literate.
Ca. 1820s 12% of world population and 53% of British population is literate.
Ca. 1830s Penny press newspapers.
Ca. 1850s Invention rotary printing press.
1860s London Subway system.
1870s Electric street lighting in European cities.
1880s – ca. 1900s Automobile (invention to mass production).
Late 19th century Gradual disappearance of previously dominant auditory system.
2000s 82% of world population is literate.
,Early Modern Period (ca. 1500 – 1800)
At the beginning of the Early Modern Period, the invention of print happened. At the
beginning of 1492, various periodizations were set: the discovery of America, the Fall of
Constantinople or the Renaissance. Many different elements make up the Early Modern
Period, there is no single cause and thus there is no exact start or ending point of the period.
Import developments in this period: mercantilism (different economic system), Reformation,
colonialism, experimental science.
Modernity (ca. 1800 – 1970s; debatable, some speak of Late Modernity: 1900 – 1989)
At the beginning of 1789, various periodizations were set: Enlightenment, Industrial
Revolution. The combination of political, intellectual, philosophical, and economic
transformations fundamentally changes the way people live together. Important
developments in this period: capitalism, secularization (the move away from the Church as
the highest authority in society to the state), industrialization, urbanization (development and
growth of cities), modern nation-states.
Acoustic communities
In David Garrioch’s article Sounds of the city: the soundscape of early modern European
towns, he writes that sound, but especially speech (voices), was the most important medium
of communication until the 1600s – 1800s (Modern Period).
People lived in “acoustic communities” (Garrioch). Characterizations of these communities:
- Orientation toward hearing (instead of seeing). Everyday life was much more
organized around oral communication. When there was important news, the town
crier communicated this by screaming it on the market square.
- Face-to-face communication (instead of the telecommunication).
- Impermanence (instead of permanence). It was hard to store information, and if you
say something without it being recorded, then it gets lost.
- Urban sounds as a system of collective communication. Urban sounds create a
complex semiotic system, which means a system of meaning production. This is
done, for instance, through bells. These sounds can be for the use of power,
resistance, to identify oneself with a village or not, to signal certain rhythms of
everyday life like religious customs or curfews, but also for extraordinary situations
like the death of a king (to remember that day) or emergencies.
Decline of acoustic communities (1500 – 1800)
Garrioch also writes that during the Early Modern Period, acoustic communities gradually
declined in importance. Speech and sound became less important for the organization of
society and culture. There are many reasons for that. Cities grew a lot bigger and became
the home of many more people. People moved to the city because that is where the work
was (industrialization). As a result, there was too much sound for it to still be meaningful.
The sounds of the cities became noise. This is not because there were too many people, it
was the amount of people that made the society become more complex with more and more
sub societies. The different acoustic practices of these different parts of society resulted in
chaos. Chaos is not the lack of order, but the simultaneous existence of several orders.
Especially in 1700 – 1800, the contexts and uses of sound changed. “If no one knew for
whom the bells were tolling, much of their value as information was lost.” The same sound
could mean too many different things. It wasn’t useful anymore and thus acoustic
communication lost its efficiency. In response to that, other sources of information were
developed and became more important: church towers got clocks, there was now also a
visual indication of the time; people got watches in their home and later on wristwatches;
maps became much more common in the Modern Early Period as people traveled across
greater distances, for instance by train; and newspapers became an important medium.
There was a slow transition from an acoustic to a visual culture. Print technology and print
media are very important to this transition.
, Before the invention of print
Differences between writing and print:
- Writing existed long before print. Writing has existed for about 5000 years.
- Impact of writing in Europe ca. 1000 BC.
- The invention of writing happened at the end of the 4th millennium BC. That is when
writing became an important medium of communication.
The access to writing was very restricted. In the medieval times and the Early Modern
Period, writing mainly happened in Latin, which was the international language of Church,
administration and elite (aristocrats, scholars, diplomats). Because very few people spoke
Latin, the Catholic Church controlled writing and knowledge. The Church didn’t want people
to know certain things, because it is easier to govern people when they don’t know things
and have to believe anything you say. However, print technology helped change that.
The invention of print
Ca. 1440, Johannes Gutenberg invented his printing press. There are several things that
make this printing press special. Gutenberg used a new hand mould to quickly create a
metal type for every letter. These types were moveable, durable and reusable. The types
could be moved around on the “matrix”, which allowed for the quick creation of a full print
matrix that holds all letters. The types were made of metal, therefore more durable and thus
reusable. Before, people carved a page into wood, which could be used for a while, but
wood eventually has wearing tear and does not last forever. The ability to move the letters
around in a matrix made it much easier and faster. The press could quickly produce large
quantities of prints, which drastically reduced the cost of printed material, especially books.
By 1500, the printing press spread throughout almost all of Western Europe. It was a hugely
successful media technology. A lot of illegal printing was done in the Netherlands, because
the Catholic Church wouldn’t allow certain writings. In England, for instance, writing was
controlled a lot by the Church.
Print and the rise of nation-states
How did this technology change the ways in which people lived together? To what extend is
the printing press a factor, one among many, in processes of social and cultural change? In
his book Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson talks about the relation of print and the
rise of nation-states.
Benedict Anderson’s general hypothesis:
Print capitalism contributes to the rise of national consciousness.
- Print capitalism: the exchange (for profit) of print-as-commodity.
- contributes to: avoid making a deterministic argument, because there is no
determinism. Print capitalism didn’t change everything. Print is one factor among
many for the rise of national consciousness.
- the rise of national consciousness: the development of the “nation” defined as an
imagined political community. Nations are about communities that are imagined.
In the 1800s, new printing technology was invented: cylinder press, rotary press, automatic
binding and cheap paper (made from wood pulp). Because of automatic printing, printed
material became a lot cheaper and more widely available. Therefore, it was possible to
produce a greater variety of print genres and aesthetics, like travel guides, comic strips and
illustrated newspapers (photographic etching). The illustrated London News ran from 1842
till 2003. In 1863, copies were sold for sixpence and each weekly edition sold 300.000
copies. The system of the printed newspaper relies on print capitalism. Capitalism has a
tendency for growth, and it was this tendency that made newspaper owners want to reach as
many people and as far as possible. This aspect of spreading print-as-commodity as far as
possible and reaching the biggest audience is very important to Anderson’s argument. Print
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