Test2

1. Lecture 2: Print as an Agent of
Change (cont)
Key publication: The Printing Press as an Agent of
Change: Communications and Cultural
Transformations in Early-Modern Europe, (1979),
Elizabeth Eisenstein
4. A restructuring of the thinking processes
Title pages “contributed to new habits of placing and dating”
(Eisenstein 1979:106).
Print also created a cultural inclination to systematize knowledge.

2. Print formats re-structured the ‘cognitive space’
They imposed a peculiarly Indo-European filter
Print reifies the Aristotelian notion of contrarity and binary logic.
Question: Is the hyperlinked hologram world of the Internet ‘linear’?
Print restructures the perception of time into the linear
pattern of narrative
Renaissance man onwards saw time as an object to be visualised.
Question: Did print really create a linear sense of time?
Question: Are attention spans really shorter in the modern
era?

3. 5. A new industry of information workers was created.
Intangible information could now be sold as an information product.
6. Novelty became valorised for its own sake.
‘Original’ once meant ab origine. Now it meant novelty.
Novelty - the latest thing - acquired commodity value
‘Newe Herrings, new, wee must crye!’ Thomas Nashe, 1592
Defoe and Richardson (mid 18thc): the first authors of
fiction who were genuinely ‘original’ in their plots

4. 7. Print provoked censorship
A threat! Now information could be managed by the hoi polloi and not
authority
A dialectic began: censorship versus free expression
Censors The press
Guild censorship: eg. Culpepper
State censorship: rise of the Stationers’ Hall:
eg.Ben Jonson (right)
Church censorship: eg. Martin Marprelate
Some clerics welcomed print; others feared it

5. Question: why did the 18thc also see provocative opinions- if they were
not seditious - being increasingly tolerated in newspapers?
Question: has state censorship in Western culture really lapsed?

6. Question: ‘how
many angels can
dance upon the
head of a pin?’
Caution: the question may not be as foolish as
it seems…

7. 8. Print ‘fixed’ material from the past.
‘Typographical fixity’ (Eisenstein 1979: 1, 116-20)
“Works ‘brought to light’ in this period [from 16thc onwards] remained
in the public domain forever after” (Eisenstein 1979:210).
9. Print also ‘fixed’ ideas for future examination.
• A book can be successively revised and reprinted; ephemera are lost
Plays were considered ephemeral until early 17th century
• A good memory was now unnecessary
• Book packaging imposed a spurious perfection on volatile manuscripts.
• A book conveys ‘immortality’ on an author
Question: Did text really fix ideas?

8. 10. Printed documents had high credibility and prestige.
The oral word acquired substance. Books
became status icons. Appeal to exclusivity
11. Print created the concept of intellectual ownership.
The book invented the author…
and the author invented copyright
“Printing forced legal definitions of what belonged in the
public domain…the terms plagiarism and copyright did not
exist for the minstrel. It was only after printing that they
began to hold significance for the author" (Eisenstein
1979:120)

9. Question: Who is the ‘author’ of a book today?
Does it matter?
How could reviewers critique a book written by
a computer program?

10. 12. Print developed the concept of privacy as an entitlement
Question: was print really responsible for the growth of
privacy?
Or did privacy really grow with
the development of chimneys?

11. 13. Print became a tool of self-fashioning
Self-aggrandisement.
Automythopoeia.
Bloggo ergo sum?

12. Summary
Eisenstein argues that print was an ‘agent of change’ that had an effect
on:-
· The Rise of Science: Cartography, Astronomy, Botany etc; The
Rise of Exploration and Exploitation of the Natural World; Scepticism and
rejection of classical authority and deductive principles (arguing from
authority).
· Religion: Reformation, Challenges to the Authority of the
Church, Religious Wars, Rise of Secularism; 18thc anti-clericalism
· The Early Modern Economy: The Rise of Mercantilism and early
Capitalism; the commodification of the word
· The Sense of Individuality and Self-Reliance in Western Culture:
The Rise of Bourgeoisie and the sturdy
individual, private, subjective, independent
· Medieval Universities: Challenges to the Old Authorities and Old
Methods of Learning, The Move towards the 17thc Enlightenment (see
Habermas and Lecture Three); major shifts in sensibility (eg joke books
became more human…)

13. Assignment:
Eisenstein argues that other conditions present in northern
European culture allowed print to act as an agent of change. Print
was not always or necessarily itself an agent of change.
Write a short 500-word paper in an academic register and
format, with citations and a terse bibliography, on the topic:
If we accept that the Internet is inarguably correlated with ‘change’
in processes of human behaviour and cognition, is the Internet by
itself an agent of change? Or is it merely associated with changes
in behaviour and cognition which may be occurring by means of
other agents entirely? Conceivably, are both arguments defensible?
Advance your argument with illustrative examples and citations.