Class Notes from Jan 12, 09 to March 23, 09: Courtesy Owen Hurst

NOTE: Our Classmate Owen Hurst has been very kind and gracious to allow his class notes to be posted on the blog for the benefit of the class. Please feel free to contribute to our mutual learning by sending along your notes if you choose to do so.

01-12-09

Introduction

• Emergence of communications in early civilization
• Role and influence of early media
• Power of new technologies

Emphasizes certain organizations over others, problems in the readings and discussions:

• Why is a focus on the medium of communication itself so important?
• How do different types of comm. technologies develop and shape their host societies?
• How do communications favour the development of particular organizational structures?

Information Revolutions

• Series of revolutions from recorded info to reliable storage outside the brain, the wish to remember something outside the brain, by writing it down, to celebrate and symbolize something. Anti graphical habit: not just about info, but about different types of info being telegraphed or communicated.
• Definition of Information Revolution important: rise of western literacy, advent of the printing press. Long wave transformation. Tend to give us the idea that its happening right there and now. Its more a series of profound changes involving new communications that affect entire societies. Changes that make a big difference to political formations and economic structures. They make a difference in the way people interact with each other, personal behavior. Societies need to be ready for them to adopt them as communications instruments. Part of an organic process, a cause/effect relationship that is continued down through the DAWN OF TIME! Social or political turbulence is a necessary occurrence in the information revolution structure. Guttenberg revolution… clay, hieroglyph, stylus, alphabet etc.
• The cause/effect relationship between social change and media

Ice Age

Ice age man – devt of symbolic language, Cro-Magnon had developed a more symbolic nature than the Neanderthal man. Why? Because of their ability to use symbols and communicate. Petroglyphs, engravings, signified the development in an increasing complexity in humanities economic and symbolic life. Comes from the end of the ice age – 11000 to 10000BC images and symbols are markers of important cultural events, periodic and cultural processes. Of rights and repetitive myths, duties, etc.

Notations of whatever were means of recording a passage of time. Separate symbol systems had different meanings, specialized meanings, different imagery,

The bias of communication

• The relationship between exercise of power and the way knowledge is preserved and saved and monopolized.
• Bias of communications – where forms of communications are vital in understanding how societies evolved.
• A book is a product of a sustained intellectual effort.
• Media and forms of communication emphasize different effect, not what they say, but what they are
• Monopolies of knowledge
• Shapes environments, political, social and religious.
• Tigris/Euphrates Valley combination of developments, in Iraq, life givers to this civilization. The use of clay made use of writing techniques. Innovations in the machinery, horses, cavalry, art of war and art of writing are interconnected.
• Successful imperial revolution came with the pharaoh. In Alexandria they were able to keep better track of their goings on. A more efficient alphabet was developed because of their better writing tools. Gave stimulus to the written language and the alphabet. A more extensive but simplified alphabet. Those oral and written traditions persisted with Christianity and Islam.

Oral Vs Written

• An important distinction: oral spoken culture’s and those that are based on written cultures.
• Orality: spoken cultures
• Oral tradition: the richness of, made for a better civilization
• Flexibility (a tendency)
• Weak on political unity: city state, provided an inadequate defense with international affairs, probably a more permeable society but it’s not going to last.
• Written
• Decline in power of expression
• Control of knowledge and monopolies of knowledge.
• They were creating a groove
• Lack of durability within the papyrus
• The medium of communication itself provides the important dissemination of knowledge over time. Innis knows all and sees all over time, but once you get closer, things start to contradict themselves. The theory that explains absolutely everything, actually explains nothing.

Space Vs Time

• The ying and yang of civilizations expansion and extension (space) vs. duration and longevity (time) rarely are these in balance. The character of the medium of communication creates an overemphasis of the time or space concept, rarely are these in balance. The medium of communication over a long period of time will determine the character of the medium communicated.
• The early development in Egypt: Stone and hieroglyphics. A monopoly of knowledge centering around these materials. Technology progresses and becomes a disruptive influence in society, a creative disruption. Might cause political unrest, social change, lose their tempers etc.
• Royal authority declined in 2500bc, the great unwashed proletariat masses. The increasing use of papyrus and the emergence of scribes. The opening up of that information doesn’t mean that everyone gets that info, but it is shared among the elite, was secularized among the bourgeoisie.
• The papyrus was able to extend the pharaohs word.

Monopolies of Knowledge

• Domination of information flow by a particular group. In the ancient world you have information protected by a certain class, a priestly organization that is further protected by communication. Complex texts of script tended to create a monopoly of knowledge.
• Came from the fringes of these civilizations, tribes of Israel demanded simplicity. Smaller organization=more permeable.

Know your Alphabet

• What good are they, anyway? Written on papyrus, empowers the masses, sign/signifier. Facilitates the growth of trade, cities of the venetians, the emergence of smaller nations depended on distinct languages.
• Heebs : concentration in the abstract of writing, it opened the development in a critical advancement in civilization. The blood relationship, “you’re my cousin, right or wrong ill defend you” from the blood relationship to universal ethical principles and standards, to the influence of the prophets, the prophets who were in power by the absolute kings. And the development of the monotheistic god.
• Laws were collected and written down in codes. The old testament took root and flourished.
• What’s happening in Persia? With the advancement of new instruments of war, the Persians developed new weapons. But they also developed the alphabet, which becomes a player, or factor in war. The effective conquest of space, they were running out of time.
• The Greeks on the other hand…….

Talk, Talk, Talk: The oral Tradition

• They emphasized oral discussion; the delay in writing, the difficulties of getting papyrus from Egypt, played a part in their delay to writing.
• The elimination of stone as a medium… combined protected the oral tradition
• Had the oral which was much more flexible. The effectiveness became evident when the Greeks checked the script.
• Tried to avoid monopolies of knowledge built around a complex script.
• The resurgence of writing in the 3^rd century. What they did do was end up building a culture that became the cradle of democratic civilization.

Further Examples

• As the mighty Roman Empire spread, bureaucratic structures were put in place. Their success was dependent on supplies of papyrus. The bias becomes apparent in the monopoly of bureaucracy. That can create rigidity, the bureaucracy is ruled out. The 3^rd dimension of empires: time
• Christianity dependent on parchment. They were able to make use of Hebrew Scriptures and made Christianity flourish. Parchment as a medium was able to spread monasticism.
• Invited a showdown: Parchment VS Paper
• The bias of communication had the seeds of its own destruction within it.
• This is partly responsible for the spread of Buddha in writing and its appeal to the lower classes. There is a role for it.

Communications & Knowledge

• Monopolies of knowledge
• Monasteries: when the light of western civ was stuffed out after the fall of Rome, it was preserved by monasteries. Sacred duty to copy books in a nice and fancy way.
• Copyist guilds: Books are works of art, pre- printing press book is apparently an amazing experience. Works of art, the high price of these books lead to a demand for the reproduction by machine.
• The printing press and how it spread: Germany, numerous political organizations. An abundance of paper, roman and italic typefaces.
• How these changes affected economic and political life: Manuscripts which have been painstakingly reproduced were now being run off in about a day. That medium of communication was now becoming a business. New readers and new authors bringing new markets to the world.
• Not to mention dividing western Christianity in two
• The rise of the vernacular: Provides the basis for the permanent division of Europe.
• Importance of lawyers
• Concept of space in nationalism

Introduction

• The problem of literacy: if you have a literate republic
• Orality and literacy – Transition. To many people oral tradition and communication suggests more primitive characteristics, were more common in the modern world. In folklore and folk traditions it was a rediscovery.
• Alphabet & writing: uses and consequences for Athens & Greece
• Rome
• Early Christianity
• The consequences of literacy

The problem of Literacy

• Hard to take an objective view
• Changing assumptions about orality and literacy
• Value of oral tradition more recognized
• Athens 5^th and 4^th centuries BC – vibrant culture and democracy, the role of the written record, the interaction and distinction between the two, Athens was the Acme of western civilization. That 5^th century developments in that society never to be surpassed again in human history.
• Radical democracy that percolated from the shores. In many respects an oral society. The influence of oral communication. Is there a strict division between oral and literate societies?
• The nature of the oral tradition is urgent in the study of Greek history and society, we know very little about that oral tradition.
• Neither classical nor ancient Greece was primarily an oral society, this creates a radical democracy in this civilization. It becomes clear that we cannot consider Greek tradition completely alone.
• Most Greek literature was meant to be heard or sung. Socrates and Plato – dialogue with the written word.
• There was a suspicion with the written word; in legal context within 4^th century BC. Politics was conducted orally,
• A civilized man had above all, to be able to speak well in public. Socrates wrote nothing down, spoke everything. Plato attacked the written word as an inadequate means of true education in philosophy. He published his own work but orally and it was transcribed. Toward the end of his career Plato stopped writing things down. He was very suspicious of the written word. His most important views should not be committed to paper.
• Public oral transmission was still common in 2^nd century AD.
• Orality and literacy not mutually exclusive:

Alphabetic Writing in the Greek World: its debut appearance-> 8^th century BC

• Adopted from the Venetians, the Greeks invented literacy and the modern basis for literate thought. The ability to think about something unexpected, the novel statement cant realize its full potential for further use. The alphabet encouraged the production of unfamiliar statements.
• Took a long time to be standardized by the Greeks.
• New ways of thinking and the power of the idea became possible. The extension of the power of the idea, Pavlov. The Greek alphabet did not transform the culture overnight.
• Some areas of Greece did not require an alphabet for quite some time.
• Ancient Chinese: probably the most difficult language in the world.

Earliest uses of Writing

• Initial development and use: bronze or leather
• Writing things down
• Poetry, cursing, dedications.

The written word became more embedded into the city state. In the temples of the Greek gods, very large numbers of Greek men must have been aware at the end of the 6^th century that writing came into use. If you didn’t know how to write, you could hire a note taker.

01-19-09

Literacy and its discontents: the case of classical Athens 5^th century BC

The problem of Literacy

• Hard to take an objective view
• Changing assumptions about orality and literacy
• Value of oral tradition more recognized

Growth of democracy, development of democracy in terms of language and broader political participation, the root of philosophical development

Innovations and the growing use of written text, dawns on civilization of the agean in 6^th century BC that larger numbers of Greek men, the entire population of certain cities, many country dwellers in addition must have been aware that writing existed. If you didn’t know how to read or write you could have someone do it for you. Functions of writing continued to multiply, mainly in terms of legal uses, business procedures, labeling, and also within the public life of the city. A powerful new medium of communication fostered by developments in technology it was starting to creep in to the oral world, as opposed to the anal. The reputation of the written word was not always positive, it seemed to generate suspicion.

Greeks perceived letters as instruments of deceit, like it was meant to fool. Its beyond legal and business uses, written text fulfilled beyond what was perceived,.

Writing and the public Sphere

• The impact on the city state in Greece
• The written law, a qualified advance. Treaties were also important, lists of priests and public officials, this idea despite earlier suspicions about literacy and the written word might be the basis for equality and justice. The written word depends on who is writing the laws, part of a social system and product of that view. Who decided what laws to write down and why? A type of analytical check, its important but restrained by the context. The written laws were not as powerful as unwritten laws.
• Remberancers – probably had good memories, Mnenonites?
• Advertising – selling yourself

Politics and Writing

• Correlation between ancient democracy and public records? It did something blasé to us, it enabled memory. Was seen as a way of magnifying or dignifying an action whether it was a curse or a law.
• Democracy and the written law go together: in Athens there is certainly a rough correlation in ancient democracy and public records. Democracy fostered the idea of promoting openness and accountability. These demand an easier access to records and laws, so that people do what they say they are doing. In oligarchy systems like Sparta, they neither publicized documents nor made them public.
• But it takes a lot more than a parchment to guarantee your writes : the written record was also meant to impose the weight of Athenian authority. It could be an instrument, not necessarily of democracy but to impress and impose.
• In Athens, democracy is closely associated with the written word. Writing down laws themselves cannot produce certain political results.
• It makes sense that the legal and political system behind the written laws had to be democratized before it could be made available to all citizens. Its not enough for the laws just to be written, a lot of other things have to come into place.
• The link between democracy and the written law have to be specified.
• The written word was mainly for administrative purposes for law and shit
• But by the 4^th century BC the first reference to someone reading quietly. It appears in Aristophanes, we can see that the written word was meant to be understood and read aloud. It was meant to be proclaimed. Now we see the beginning of different uses.
• In the 5^th century BC written documents proliferated.

The State, the Individual and the Written Record

• Social status and literacy – the complex administration was required to manage the empire, they had goods, subject peoples and they had to keep track of things, all had to be written down. The Athenian assembly was dealing with more and more administration, the empire involved Athens in more alliances and more punitive settlements. You had to pay for the invasion, so you make the person who loses pay.
• In addition, many inscriptions intended to impress Athens authority over her empire. The stelai, the punitive settlements after an ally had revolted. And make sure the settlement is written down so they can see it. It had an administrative and police function. Like wearing a big sign. The show of exemplary and symbolic force. There is a shadow force to the written word.
• In the increasingly commercial world in the 4^th century, court cases, people gave testimony. There’s a value to having it written down and recorded.
• If you were an Athenian and you didn’t read, were you considered part of the underclass? No not really, you wouldn’t be cut off from society. The first couple of centuries its ambiguous, and optional. Now it’s a prerequisite for success. But back then not so much
• Illiteracy was not a barrier to success in that day and age
• Your social status would be much more important, whether you were a slave, free, owned an olive grove, couple of ships, etc. Literacy was important….. but not essential.
• Once a slave always a slave, literacy alone did not bring status itself.
• Athens was a large and prosperous city, urbanism, trade, wealth, democratic government, demographic changes, bureaucratic changes, literacy fits in with all of these changes
• A cultural ascendency over all states, which makes it even more important.
• In the last 20 years, scholars have been tipping the scales towards writing was not what it was cracked up to be in those times. Has no intrinsic qualities that make it liberating or alienating. The context is important. The political meanings of writing lie in whatever political regimes make of it.

ROMA – SPQR (the senate and people of Rome)

“The Home of Empire and of All Perfection” – Ammianus Marcellinus

Lots to read – a more documentary society, the glory of Rome comes after Athens, it vastly surpasses it in terms of power, buildings, bureaucracy, but not in the ideas of those ideas about civilization. Roman society is far more dominated by books and documents.

Latin literature inherited the weight of the heritage of Hellenistic scholarship. They can build on that, that Athenians had nothing to build on as they created it. Roman imperial period, there was a lot of stuff to read in the cities. There was a flourishing book trade, a wide reading public certainly by the 2^nd century AD. The written word was important in administration, in the records of taxation, in the deliberation of the citizen body, in the circulation of literature and everyday life.

• Writing in various forms was much more deeply integrated into the cities than it had ever had in classical Greece. Performance was essential to the Romans, oral presentation was crucial. You could not succeed in Rome unless you could pull off public speaking.
• A lot of hand gestures to exemplify the speaking skills.
• Morality was alive and well. How do innovations diffuse themselves across markets?
• Written texts were used extensively for teaching purposes, many texts of a speech were among circulation when delivered.
• In teaching situations, members of the audience pooled their notes in shorthand lecture.

Writing Develops

• 450BC law of the Twelve Tables- acknowledged the lower classes of Rome, they’re craftsman and tradesmen, of foreign background in Rome.
• A republic emerges out of monarchy, assume sacred obligations, beyond private family and religion, they also monopolize the knowledge of unwritten laws.
• Other bodies, it demanded that some things be written down, laws, rights,
• Time of Cicero, journalist, legal scholar, public speaker, legal precedence were largely kept in the minds of men. Laws, benefits and as the society had become more complex, they needed a manual to regulate and define.
• Women were becoming slightly more independent, a limited right to ownership, we log the events of that old society but we could never live in that society.
• The developments of civil law and family contract, that Roman law persisted for about two millennia. English common law, and Roman structure were side beside.
• The law was becoming an ascendant, the power of the written law.

The Spread of Writing

• They took over parts of Spain, the power of Rome is all around the Mediterranean and North Africa.
• Latin, the language of Rome, it had reached a type of maturity, the power of the written word became the equivalent of oral speech.
• The Greek influence was extended, because a lot of the books were classics. They drew from that Hellenistic influence.
• Books began to appear to meet the demands of the state and an increasing legal culture. Law is becoming more and more important to people, as did lawyers.
• The Roman dominance of Egypt gave them large supplies of papyrus.
• You could also see the rise of the written word in the quality of the Greek dramas. It creates that groove and a rigid way of thinking.
• Rome wanted to govern large areas, they wanted to extend its writ, Those needs of administration lead to a weakening of democracy.
• Military Governors started getting a taste for absolute power
• The spread of writing contributes to the rise of the empire and the downfall of the republic.

The Spread of Writing II

• Late republic and the principate, the spread of literacy in Roman world.
• They organized a state postal service
• Rome was able to extend its rules which meant that the iron fist of the empire could reach you much more easily. It wasn’t all take take take, but you’d want to be a Roman rather than a minority.
• Even within the empire, Rome was telling them what to do more and more. Pay your tribute to Rome, send some people off to join the army,
• The erosion of rights, the letter of the law becomes supreme
• The living growth of the law was replaced by the dead letter of the law
• Books are not just great transmitters of the laws but they’ve become instruments of literary propaganda, there’s a drag of public life in the empire.
• Punishment, confiscation of work that reflected critically on the emporer, leads to hypocritical silence and subterfuge and civility.
• One of the effects of the written tradition, centralized administration
• Rome became dependent on the army, territorial expansion, international economy becoming more and more closed.
• By 4^th century BC, various texts were vital to Rome’s political and economic power. That’s why they’ve accelerated the functions of writing in the republic.
• Oral traditions had persisted
• Very much a twilight world between oral and written universes.
• During this period writing was not just about the law, some scholars would argue that they were almost modern in the uses of writing, Advertisements and rudimentary newspapers. They wrote up political slogans. Kept records of who became a citizen, texts of magical spells, books advocating religious beliefs, protested their love for each other, letters, commemorated the dead, lots of uses for writing.
• The diffusion of literature remained oral to an important extent, throughout antiquity, if you wanted to be a successful politician or teacher, you needed to know how to move crowds.
• The crowds weren’t as polite as they are today.
• Its clear that great numbers of men exercised their right as citizens with little or no reference to reading or writing.
• Twilight World – transition from away from oral culture. To an intermediate condition.

The Change

• Rise in literacy…. 250-100 BC
• Followed by a decline 200-400 AD
• Increasing reliance on the written word in Rome, there are other factors at work.
• The reliance, or the Romanization of backward provincial regions meant the spread of literacy.
• The late Roman empire, the decline of literacy among some regions, history…. Huge array of political and economic developments in this time. Financial hardships, the destruction of city life
• Rome and its great cities are put to a torch, or the barbarian invasions…

Christianity and Writing

• Spread of writing, or word of mouth? Through word of mouth and the development of sacred texts (gospel) an emphasis of Christianity to produce those gospels, they were felt to be powerful instruments of relationship with the devine.
• By the 2^nd century, cities would have a body of written material in their possession. Scriptures acquired a tremendous influence. There was no need for personal reading, 8 out of 10 couldn’t read.
• The decline of literacy in later antiquity was an immeasurable fact. Where does the written word migrate? A new social location as Rome falls, that’s among the priestly class, the more enthusiastically piaus of classes. Education suffered, schools weakened further.
• These circumstances, political upheaval, the destruction of cities, etc.
• These circumstances literacy declined from the craftsman’s high empire down to the marginal type of literacy that was to prevail to the middle ages.

How Many?

• The question of literacy rates in the Empire – 15 to 20% maybe? Possibly as low as 10%
• That degree of literacy would vary widely from area to area. But we didn’t really know.
• What were the consequences of literacy for ancient Rome?
• Economic – assisted trade, the accumulation of technical information, had some positive systematic effects.
• Political hegemony & Authority – writing assisted hegemony in the Greek and Roman world. Set up colonies and secured power through the written word.
• Cultural Extension – got the jump on oral cultural, just write it down. Eventually become subordinate.
• Imperial expansion- Rome wouldn’t have been able to extend its empire if it hadn’t been for the written world.
• Does literacy facilitate exploitation?
• Urbanism – economy, literacy, the spread of writing, that all accompanied cultural imperialism, Roman Gall.
• A whole Roman leadership class had more in common with the ruling elites in Milan, and writing and literacy was important. Literacy equals exploitation, that theory applies with a particular force.
• Small class of literate people, and the rest are covered in shit. A good recipe for exploitation. The affects of literacy should not be exploited. Can be intensified by the use of writing. While the spread of literacy could have limiting affects, it also allowed people to defend their rights of freedoms, limited literacy did not create democracy, but it did have the effect of citizens to extend their rights.
• Written laws gave citizens a minimal sense of security, a degree of protection against tyrants. Opposition to roman emperors took literal form. Writing can serve as class hegemony, when the ability to read and write spreads, that group is able to develop their own sense of rights. It might enable them to resist oppression.

The Meaning of Writing

• The authority of what books said might be unduly heavy, instrument of power, but also empowerment.
• Positive and negative effects,
• The accumulation of texts was necessary but not sufficient condition of the literary achievements of the academic world. It served as a resource to those who came afterward. Scientific, religious, you couldn’t ignore that when it was written down.

Intellectual Consequences

• Progress made, in spite of use
• Slowed some aspects of creativity and diversity
• Technical fields
• The preserve of a privileged minority
• The Greeks and Roman’s would have had much different societies if they had achieved mass literacy. They had mass consequences to their societies that were sometimes not at all beneficial.
• If you were an individual that was blessed with literacy, it would have been a golden gift.

Conclusions:

• The legacy of literacy
• Its interaction with political economic and cultural developments
• Different societies, different effects?

The Renaissance Computer: Being A Lecture On the Subject of Gutenberg’s Printing Press & The Consequences Pertaining Thereto for European Societies….

Introduction

• The Gutenberg revolution of the 15^th century marks the emergence of modernity in the Christian West. The emergence of that new technology is a diffusion for both religion and science.
• How communication technology affected the wider world around it, how it was used or abused, how it was a vital player in the battle of ideas, the clash of faiths in western civilization
• How the modern world is constructed, evolved, progressed all stems from this vital period
• Interaction between technology and the ways of seeing, printing press and religion, we need to understand of the sophistication of this period.
• What happens when the printing press crashes into history????
• Perhaps the greatest invention ever???

Johann Gutenberg 1455 – diffusion of the printing press

The invention of the printing press remained unaltered for the next 500 years. The means of molding the faces of the letters, the press itself and the oil based inks. A paper world had come into existence. Spreading outwards from Germany, appearing in Italy, France, Spain, Holland, Denmark, Mexico City, only later to the English speaking countries by 1500, 280 European towns had a printing press.

20 million individual books were in circulation by 1500. Before the arrival of the press there was maybe 50,000. Few Europeans would be unaware of the printing press, the flow of material out of urban centers. The book was now not just a sacred object, it was a commodity, it was a crafted piece of work, illuminated. At the same time new occupations entered the human lexicon. Reading, for information or pleasure, devotion or distraction was to become a possibility for countless people. This was huge.

The Renaissance Computer?

Book	Computer
Cathedral/University Library	Large Scale Institution/corporation
Indexing Begins	Search engines
New databases possible	New databases possible
New forms & different commitment to space & New intellectual processes	Knowledge as discrete entity with own set of rules
Perpetuates the old	Perpetuates the old
Overlapping period scribal and print	Overlapping period – print and digital

• The book also appears for a long period of time, there is an overlapping time between print and digital culture.
• As computer processing power goes up, its cheapness comes down. Like buying a BMW for 50 cents from the 60’s today
• In the pre-printing days, overproduction dominated the transmission of information
• Scribal transmission – before and after – 200 copies, 2 years; 200 copies 100 days.
• Books were only able to be purchased by a few wealthy individuals, libraries were extremely rare and only open to the elite scholars and high ranking officials.
• 19^th century, the great unwashed had access to lots of information.
• The marked increase In the output deserves emphasis. Production goes way up and the labour costs go way down. Books were chained up in libraries, they were so valuable. The potential researchers would be involved in the production process. It was like ordering a custom made suit.

Before the press, 45 scribes labored 2 years to provide 200 copies.

Print and the Public Arena

• Martin Luther and the power of the press. Early printers, capitalists, publishers, agents, typesetters, retailers all in one
• Time period. The power of the printing press was beyond any one individual. The very existence of the printing press was to transform that theological debate in the ways that Luther could comprehend in his debate.
• It did seem to speed up the dissemination of the idea.

01-26-09

Antler Tool

• Earliest known artifact containing two types of notation: cumulative markings and naturalistic sketches
• Separate symbol systems and imagery (each with a specialized meaning) could be combined)

Mammoth Ivory “Venus”

• We cannot assume that these tools and figures were created by man
• Many female images come from this period
• Eg “venus” figurines

Tata Plaque

• Was not a tool
• A carved and symbolic object
• All marks of carving and scraping were missing
• The plaque was carefully carved

02-02-09

The Dangerous Estate? Printing press and the rise of newspapers.

Evolution, looks good on paper…..

Really in the 1620’s the rise of the newspaper that we understand it. A continuing relationship between the reader, printer, and originator

From Relation:

To Coranto:

To Diurnall:

To the Mercury/Intelligencer: appeared in the form of a book, Belgians: a Latin publication,

The press itself beings to take off, it didn’t take off in Asia until the Europeans injected it into their culture.

• It was never intended to envelop the common reader, they were just meant to be ruled, it was none of their business to hear about world events.
• In the west there was a different mystery. Printing in the 17^th century, there were some powerful changes in Western Civilization
• A new public sphere was created that was separate from the state or civil society, separate from the realm of public life. This is a new space, the flowering of this special space allowed people to regulate and criticize both the public and private spheres.
• It all plays a fundamental part in changing the structure of politics.
• Reading was relevant in a new way, print discourse was not separated from state to state. Individuals moreover had a tendency to assert autonomy and citizenship by virtue of their reading and publishing. It was an important moment in individualism. The creation of the public sphere.
• Dissemination of print and that culture creates new opportunities for individuals to make new use of their public reason.
• Enlightenment intellectuals often expressed very strong views about print. In 1765, John Adams detected the history of power as a history of knowledge.
• Print culture in the United States was one of the greatest contributors to the great American revolution, or the great American rebellion.
• What begins is this idea that modern history is a story of human self determination that emerges through debate, refection and information.
• Print is decentralized, competing nodes that are roughly the same. Little regional centers of press managed to take root.
• In this period, print is becoming less and less a technology of privacy by a dominant authority, and more of a public forum. Eventually in the 17^th century, shit changes, more democratized.
• Its expanding, the technology is becoming more of publicity, which is becoming civic
• Makes a difference in the civic realm. In the American context the revolution was mostly taken on by writers, pamphleteers, not paperback writers, people who wrote leaflets.
• The colonists were engaging in violent crowd actions, organized law breaking, boycotts, they also engineered a newspaper and pamphlet war. Writing against King George the insane monarch of Britain.
• It was a new weapon that was getting some great use.
• The American revolutionary war=the paper war, helped to articulate grievances, promotes an inter-colonial vibe.
• The public remained a public of readers, they saw themselves as such. The American Revolutionary war has implications everywhere in the west. Some of the same things are happening only in a less explosive way.
• The UK after 1695, they’ve moved out of Liverpool, Bristol, Birmingham etc.. London papers were beginning to produce Dailies. (daily newspapers)

Case Study ONE! England

• The ever changing medium: A major theme, newspapers need to obtain, publish, and distribute news as fast as possible
• Seek an attractive layout, profit making concerns are consciously concerned with costs
• Improve product to maximize profit.
• People want to make money its not a charity.
• Trying new things to move ahead.
• The speed of its occurrence, it creates a sense of awareness of change.
• Creates a sense of transience on one hand, opportunity on the other.
• The culture of print represented a threat to the standard social, political order.
• The most serious threat in the religious sphere was information. The vernacular had given concerned individuals an opportunity to read the scriptures themselves.
• What kind of news was fit to print back then? It was as much of or a counterpart to than an explanation, could be repetitive, superstitious, afforded security in an insecure world.
• The active world of newspapers, after 1620 the first English newspaper imported from Amsterdam, but they are interested in this country as of what's happening
• There is a wider cultural shift happening, the shift is changing the news: less fairy tales and superstition more FACT
• News serials: focused on development abroad, the importance in Britain and struggles of the continent.
• The need for news sped up because of that civil war.
• The newspapers arrival was not simply a political event, they were different than other types of news. The only counterpart was the weekly sermon.
• The difference between essay papers and pamphlets. It was a commercial product, little in-depth analysis. The events were the focus of attention, the background was rarely described adequately, in England at least, the political impartiality and the in-satisfaction of the readers
• The context was competitive and there were overwhelming political pressures, commercial pressures encouraged a focus on marketing and how to get production costs down. In England, strangely enough, the English press was independent of government.
• What we’re seeing here is commercialization from the rise of the civic society.
• Power of the press + the power of London.
• Shaped opinions worldwide, they were powered by new and more powerful technologies, unshackled by imp unitization.
• The moment the taxes are lifted, you have an opening up of a cheap press, more advertisements, lower cost, in the 18^th century a London newspaper would be lucky if it could sell 10,000 copies per week. In the 19^th century 900,000 copies a week.
• They drew extensively on police reporting
• From nothing it becomes a central factor. The British experience becomes an urban experience.
• The scale of it, offers opportunities for profit and investment.
• After 1812 the spread of the printing press was SPECTACULAR
• Everything that we were was in newspaper, everything that we were becoming, the palladium of labour was in the newspaper.
• By the 1840’s we have the emergence of the printing press.
• Journalism was an easy route to comfort and status, no special skills other than to read and write. Attracted lots of weird people, if you had an axe to grind you’d become a journalist.
• By the 1840’s a real profession began to take hold. The news business begins to take shape
• Advertising takes up 1/3 , 2/3 of space. Mainly given over to enlightenment and amusement.
• There was some learned discussion, the immaculate conception, the ins and outs of middle eastern politics all made it to the press. Newspapers started to offer news of the present
• Canadian papers were sensationalist, biased, partisan, opinionated and that’s why people bought them
• An editorial opinion back then was a cherished pulpit that sold papers, you want to hear other people’s take on it, hear people go off on a rant about it.

Case study #3 India

• Christian missionaries bring the press
• Goa 1556 “Doutrina Christa”: first printing press arrives. The first book printed in India is printed in Portuguese, a children’s book.
• What happens in India with the printing press? The press is used to harness
• India’s first newspaper is the Bengal Gazette 1790
• 1814-1818 Dig Darshan – 1^st Indian language paper
• Autonomous Indian language journalism rose.
• Directives supporting the views of the administration. Indians themselves thought that they could write a paper for themselves.

02-23-09

Samuel Morse invented the dot-dash standard of the morse code,

Theories of invention

• Transcendentalist
• Mechanistic
• Cumulative Synthesis, rises out of the accumulation of knowledge, one persons work is inseparable from the work of others.
• People were searching for a way to apply electricity to technology

Invention is the offspring of necessity, there is relevance.

• The groundwork for invention, the foundations get laid, only then could the telegraph be invented. When the telegraph gets invented, independently the telegraph also appeared. A common technical pool that Canada eventually became a part of.
• We develop specialization as Canadians, feed into a global technical pool.
• The idea of invention, a great man theory, does it just appear?
• Telegraph technologies and innovation in someways grow out of a general mean. The need for greater information processing. They built on the knowledge available. National cultural heritage. Not all inventions are alike
• True that the telegraph was a product of individual inventive effort.

Invention needs diffusion – science and practical application

• Commercial vs state run, different answers to that
• The Press (again) and the Mexican American War.
• Need to know, and make it fast.
• A case of incremental innovation, they tinker with it, its not a radical invention
• In the history of communication technology incremental innovation is cost effective, the concern shifts from the total innovation towards incremental innovation.
• Feb 21^st 1838 the American cabinet witnessed a demo from Sam Morse.
• 6 years passed before Sam got some money to make it happen.
• The first telegraph system

The first relationship between technology and innovation, its theoretical to the entire population.

• It was over 5 years later that the government granted access to the pubic.
• The newspaper industry in 1846 the Mexican American war was going on, people wanted to know what was going on
• Journalists were challenged to find out an easier way to transmit their stories.
• The expansion in this period, that introduction of that kind of long distance reporting coupled with people’s desire to receive rapid info, papers and wire transmitters formed an association.
• The associated press in the 1860’s were very close with the Telegraph companies.

Social effects of the telegraph

• New corporate structures made possible
• Solutions and opportunities for more than blue collar work, change the colour of collars to white
• The development of a national identity?
• Women and the telegraph, the ambiguous legacy
• The complexity of telegraphy meant that men were moving up the ladder and creating vacancies at the bottom. Women were paid 60% less as female operators.
• For many women who were going into the telegraph industry, it was better than going into washing rags or being a whore
• Telegraphic technology made possible women into a new movement and new social class
• Opened corporate America up to women. Telegraphic employment afforded women the opportunity to pierce the barrier between being a woman and a professional career.
• Telegraphic information became embedded into north American society. An important tool for various social aspects and economic aspects of life.

Conclusion

• The first information communications technology of a series to utterly transform methods of production, relationships, structures and managerial control
• Important as innovation and diffusion

03-02-09

The economic and political Organization of Communications: A case Study of Canada 1880-1910

Alexander Graham Bell – bad at German

• Moved to London to make a name for himself as a teacher.
• His 2 brothers died in the 1860’s of tuberculosis, his family insisted on moving to a healthier climate = Canada
• Moved to Brantford, young Bell resented the move, wanted to stay in London England.
• Alex’s introduction to Canada wasn’t exactly ideal, felt the pull of the united states. 1871, offered a teaching job at a school for the deaf.
• Bigger things were happening in New England, especially Boston. Famous for its universities and libraries, and business people. Totally hardwired to turn innovation into profit.
• Alex met Hubbard, who had a deaf daughter who needed an education.
• Soon they understood (Hubbard and Alex) they had a common interest.
• Alex starts tinkering, turns to telegraphy, pours his considerable energy into this technology.
• Put together his expertise into teaching the deaf, and came up with the telephone.
• An extraordinary race began between june 1875 and march 1876,
• Fell in love with his pupil, Mabel Hubbard. They wed
• 1876 early, getting closer to securing speech, if you didn’t patent it then there would be no proof that you actually meant it. Bell learned that he had to file a patent in London first to have a British Patent.
• London bound George Brown to file this patent. In exchange for the world patent rights to the telephone. Brown turned the offer down, because he listened to “expert” opinion.
• They thought it was impossible, and not right
• While Bell waited, Hubbard directed his lawyers to file the patent behind his back
• Elijah Grey backed by General Electric, filed a patent too.
• People are still making money off of this story
• A few days after Alexander Bell’s 29^th birthday, he receives the patent to the phone
• He transmitted the first clearly intelligible sentence.
• For Bell and his backers, inventing the phone was just the beginning
• What followed was a fight to hold the patent.
• Western Union fought to get the patent, even a dirty smear campaign couldn’t prevent bell from winning and keeping the patent
• Bell had to defend his patent 600 times until 14 years later when the patent expired
• Bell and his group were the leading actors in a grand public spectacle which some historians called the theater of science.
• The public excitement surrounding inventions verged on the miraculous.

03-23-09

News in America

Current events revolution – important element of democratic life

• Radio in the 1930s created a more elevated tone than many of the newspapers.
• Avoided the boring, sensationalism prevailed, avoided sexual crime, many stations refused to use the word rape!
• Avoided stories of purely local interests,
• News tended to be much more cautious of its political coverage than newspapers
• Why? Because of its audience, the broadcasters dependence on regulatory goodwill.

Had to come to a truce