Print culture
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"He who first shortened the labor of Copyists by device of Movable Types was disbanding hired Armies, and cashiering most Kings and Senates, and creating a whole new Democratic world: he had invented the Art of Printing."--Sartor Resartus |
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Print culture embodies all forms of printed text and other printed forms of visual communication. As a term of art it is contrasted to oral culture, manuscript culture, which preceded it.
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The reading revolution
The printing press brought a vast effiency in the mechanical reproduction of the written word, its effects was the great expansion of written culture at the expense of oral culture. The development of printing, and especially the invention of movable type by Gutenberg, like the development of writing itself, had profound effects on human societies and knowledge. "Print culture" refers to the cultural products of the printing transformation.
Visual culture
In terms of visual culture, a similar transformation came in Europe from the fifteenth century on with the introduction of the old master print and, slightly later, popular prints, both of which were actually much quicker in reaching the mass of the population than printed text.
Communication
Print culture is the conglomeration of effects on human society that is created by making printed forms of communication. Print culture encompasses many stages as it has evolved in response to technological advances. Print culture can first be studied from the period of time involving the gradual movement from oration to script as it is the basis for print culture. As the printing became commonplace, script became insufficient and printed documents were mass produced. The era of physical print has had a lasting effect on human culture, but with the advent of digital text, some scholars believe the printed word is becoming obsolete.
Electronic media
The electronic media, including the World Wide Web, can be seen as an outgrowth of print culture.
Ong and Eistenstein
Print culture's key expositor is Elizabeth Eisenstein, who contrasted print culture, which appeared in Europe in the centuries after the advent of the Western printing-press (and much earlier in China where woodblock printing was used from at least 800AD), to scribal culture. Walter Ong, by contrast, has contrasted written culture, including scribal, to oral culture.
See also
- Elizabeth Eisenstein
- Johann Gutenberg
- Walter J. Ong
- Jay David Bolter
- Understanding Media
- Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing
