Chapter 7

• Information age - began at around the 1970's and still on going today. It is also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age or New Media Age
• PRE-GUTENBERG PERIOD: During the Middle Ages in Europe, most people lived in small, isolated villages. Written documents were rare and almost no one can can read or write the language they spoke. Books, all hand copied were rare, expensive and almost, always in Latin word
• Those few who were literate usually went on to master LATIN, the universal language of scholarship
• PRE-GUTENBERG PERIOD: Before the discovery of the printing press, books in Europe were typically handwritten manuscripts while paper-money, playing cards, posters and the likes were blockprinted from hand-carved wooden blocks
• JOHANNES GUTENBERG He brought on a new era of print with his revolutionary innovation of movable type in 1445.
• Movable type printing used metal stamps of single letters that could be arranged into words, sentences and pages of text.
• Gutenberg’s invention made books the internet of the time. The printing press made it possible to produce books more quickly and cheaper that ever before
• in 1463, printed bibles cost one-tenth of hand-copied bibles. By 1500, Europe had more than 1000 printers and 7,000 books in prints.
• “TRAVELS” A book authored by MARCO POLO who was read by a young sailor in Genoa named Christopher Columbus, in which he described his journey to China.
• The arrival of mechanical movable type printing introduced the ERA OF MASS COMMUNICATION, which permanently altered the structure of society.
• The increasing cultural self-awareness of the people led to the rise of proto-nationalism, and the European venacular languages to the detriment of Latin status as LINGUA FRANCA
• Newspapers and pamphlets generated information and ideas faster. Literacy began to rise as well as the types of information people could be exposed to
• PRINTED MATERIALS AS AGENT OF CHANGE Gutenberg’s movable type printing press was a disruptive innovation in more ways than one. In addition to making printed materials more accessible, it allowed for the spread of knowledge both within elite communities, like the Catholic Church and the scientific community, and also to the rest of the general population.
• POST-GUTENBERG PERIOD The impact of the Gutenberg printing press was immeasurable. It caused nothing less than a dramatic social and cultural revolution. The sudden widespread dissemination of printed works – books, tracts, posters and papers – gave direct rise to the European Renaissance
• While Gutenberg’s famous Bible was printed in Latin, his invention of the movable type press meant that Protestant tracts and the arguments between Martin Luther and the Catholic Church which led to the Reformation could be widely disseminated (post-gutenberg period)
• The Reformation that began in Germany in the early 16th century, led to the Bible being printed in the languages common to people. Gutenberg’s invention led inevitably to the Protestant revolution, the Age of Enlightenment, the development of Modern Science and Universal Education. In other words, everything that has led to human progress and the advancement of the modern world (post-gutenberg period)
• At present, people are beginning to look for secure and accurate and believable news portals but, the traditional trusted publishing outlets have less public beliefs as many people believe governments are manipulating them
• The local press is in sharp circulation decline, and the online advertising businesses have moved to Google and Facebook and others. The result has caused newspaper closures and large-scale downsizings and redundancies. Many people now prefer to believe people from their social environment, instead of turning to “the media”.
• The collateral damage caused by digitization is increasing amounts of information and currently, this is not going to stop. The emergence of the Internet and the World Wide Web in the 1990s was initially hailed by many as ushering in a new democratic age, driven by much greater access to information
• Paradoxes of Technology: Empowerment vs. Enslavement, Independent vs Dependence, Fulfill needds vs. Creates Needs, Competence vs Incompetence, Engaging vs Disengaging, Public vs Private, Illusion vs. Disillusion
• Empowerment vs Enslavement - New technologies allow us to be connected to and reachable by everyone. However, as a result, our privacy is threatened and technology starts controlling us. Whether we want or not, we feel socially obliged to take phone calls, answer emails, and send responses to messages on Facebook.
• Independent vs Dependence - New gadgets such as cell phones allow us to do many things on our own. However, this situation creates dependency, as we can’t go even one day without our phones and we feel helpless when the Internet is down.
• Fulfills needs vs Creates needs - technology resolves some problems but also introduces new ones, e.g. we need devices with longer battery life, we need antivirus software to be safe, we need to learn new skills, et
• competence vs Incompetence - We can get any information we want and reach anyone we want with the help of new technologies. However, we lose our ability to remember phone numbers and our ability to articulate thoughts
• Engaging vs Disengaging - When we are engaged in an activity that involves the use of new technology, we need to disengage from whatever we are doing. We directly interact with our family and loved ones less frequently because we tend to engage more in new portable technology tools
• Public vs Private - New technologies blur the line between what is public and what is private. People may talk on the phone or message someone among a circle of acquaintances, which may be disturbing'
• Illusion vs Disillusion - We tend to think new communication technologies make our lives better. However, the more we communicate, the more trivial our conversations become. In other words, more communication does not always equal better communication
• First, the spread of broadband internet access made it possible to easily both upload and download all forms of media: video, images and audio as well as just text and transactions. Second, tools emerged which made it simple for people to publish or spread information. Blogging was the first example, followed by social networking and distribution and sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr