Significance of Media and Communication - Essay Example

Media and communication Student Name: Tutor’s Name: COURSE: COLLEGE NAME: Media and communication Significance of the revolution attributed to the development of printing technology and the impact on orality and oral traditions Before the invention of the printing technology, books were produced by scribes. This means that books were entirely written by hand which was labor-intensive. This means a dozen volumes made a library and a hundred books made up an awe-inspiring collection. This remained the case until the invention of the movable printer. It took a while for the technology to spread across the world (Phinney, p. 1). The speed that the new invention came with was impressive. Within a short time, there were a thousand printers in shops over several cities. To those who have grown up with books, radio, television, faxes, networked computer communications and movies find it hard to describe the revolution of the printer. The development was the first mass medium, and it enabled the free spread of information and ideas in a totally new way. Many groups were formed, in a bid, to control the new invention. Scribes were among them as they fought to against the introduction of the new technology. The main basis being the fact that it would cost them their religious authorities and livelihoods (Phinney, p. 2). The resistance was unsuccessful in many countries. This was because the books available were printed by the government using authorized printers. The printers were then blamed for the spread of unwanted information instead of the authors. The development of printing has been celebrated as being a major step in the development as well as advancement of the western civilization. The printing technology embodies all forms of text that is printed as well as other forms of visual communication. It was seen as the point where the world commenced. The development has made possible the vast distribution of the printed word. This has brought about rapid and broad social advances through the explosion in democratized knowledge, learning and literacy. The revolution has been seen as the most significant inventions in the history of humans (Cook, p. 12). This is because it made it possible to put more knowledge and information into the hands of people at reduced costs in less time. Learning and literacy have since spread rapidly and widely than before. The development has had an effect on the human society created by making communication in printed forms. Learning has been made accessible to the common person. This is because the information and all forms of communication needed to be available for the common person. The achievement of broad learning and literacy makes the story of printing revolutionary. Before print technology, oral culture existed. Storage of what is said for a long time became necessary over time. Written text was therefore, the only means of reliance. The orals form of communication and information storage were therefore, replaced by print technology. There is a strong belief since knowledge contained is believed to be accurate. The written word has replaced the spoken word. The printing press has replaced the written word. In the modern society, the internet or computers are replacing the printing press. The revolution has also made an impact on people who use laptops, personal digital organizers and cell phones. There is constantly a disparity in the opinion among economic historians about the extent to which the new technology was a revolutionary innovation. Some described the move as a quantum jump with an argument that the innovation had begun to push down the information price. They also said that it is the western progress that should be owed much to the superior means with which information was stored and disseminated (Dittmar, 2009, p. 5). From a large-scale survey conducted, social historians have praised the innovation as having an impact and revolution on social issues. The development and innovation brought about radical transformations in the intellectual life conditions. Historians have seen the printing technology as a facilitation of intellectual developments. This involved processes of recombining ideas and sharing them hence making intellectual skills valuable. There is an argument that via its fundamental and pervasive impact on several economic activities, the innovation may qualify as being a general-purpose technology (Dittmar, 2009, p. 6). Printing technology was then an urban technology. This is because the printed media was mainly urban and was utilized in the urban areas. The cities and countries that adopted the innovation benefitted from them positively and localized spillovers in the accumulation of human capital. The spillovers led to growth in cities by exerting pressure on the returns of labor. This, in turn, made cities dynamic as far as culture is concerned thus attracting migrants. Migration drove city growth because high wages were offered and there were attractive economic and cultural opportunities that were available (Dittmar, 2009, p. 8). Print media played a major role in the development and acquisition of skills that were essential to businesspersons and merchants. Print media contributed to technological change, accumulation of human capital and the spread of literacy. It fostered the emergence of competencies, dispositions and aptitudes that suited and reflected the ideal commercial environment. For merchants who were engaged in long-distance and large-scale trade, the ability to keep sophisticated accounts and numeracy were associated with better returns (Dittmar, 2009, p. 8). The new technology was mainly associated with development of an urban public sphere and the emergence of the culture of information exchange. Print media was a trade that was widely done, but countries with a printing press had more benefits from the technology than those that did not have. The main reason here was because print media were costly to transport, sensitive to damp and heavy (Dittmar, 2009, p. 11). Despite the challenges, the innovation spread across the world, and it was adopted in no time. Impact on orality and oral traditions In the past, in the African society, values and knowledge were transmitted through generations through the use of oral traditions. The youth were taught how to do various chores by their parents. With time, they acquired the skills and were now able to pass on the skills to another generation (Mafu, 2004, p. 54). Tribal traditions and values were transmitted formally during circumcision ceremonies and initiation. This applied in the African society as opposed to the western cultures whose traditions are different. Print technology was started in the western community, which later spread into the other countries. In fact, it was the colonial governments and missionaries who brought about the changes that were and are still being witnessed in the African societies. The printing presses were able to meet the demands for all sectors which were evolving rapidly. Orality has a requirement to produce and is, in fact, destined to produce writing. There is hardly any oral culture left in the modern world that is, not somehow aware of the numerous complex powers that are forever inaccessible without literacy. The awareness is a problem for individuals who are rooted in primary orality and need literacy but who are also aware that moving into the world of literacy means leaving their earlier world and all that it entails (Dickinson, p. 320). Orality cannot be used without invoking a variety of social, physical, cultural, linguistic and sexual signifiers. The signifiers definitely are subject to change contextually and historically. Orality and oral traditions refer to language and situations where cultures were not touched by any print of any form of writing. Basic differences have been found out between the ways of managing verbalization and knowledge in primary oral cultures (Ong, 2005, p. 12). Primary oral cultures are those cultures without any knowledge of writing. Writing opens up a new world, and in that new world, the spoken word still lives and resides. Reading printed media means converting it to sound in imagination or aloud. Primary oral culture hardly exists in the strict sense (Ong, 2005, p. 22). This is because of the actuality that every culture has some experience and knows writing and its effects. To some degree, many cultures as well as subcultures, even those in a high-technology ambiance, preserve a lot of the mindsets of primary orality. Primary orality and pure oral tradition are not easy to understand meaningfully and accurately. Printed media are residue. Oral tradition does not have deposit or residue (Ong, 2005, p. 22). A story that had been old long ago exists in the potentiality of humans to tell it. The new technology has altered the way data is packaged and retained for later use. To solve the problem of packaging and retaining thoughts, thinking has to be done in mnemonic patterns that are shaped for oral recurrence. Oral cultures avoid complex clauses, which has been solved greatly by the print media. The print culture and the printed or written word as technology have had an impact on cultures. The history of communication better explains it. In the past, there was orality, which mainly involved speech, then pictograms, to the phonetic alphabet, to typography, to electronic communications being used today. Technological changes have had an impact on oral traditions as well as their transmissions. They have stretched traditional control, empowered the individual learner and broadened access to traditional text (Summit, p. 4). Some authorities met the technological invocations with resistance and fear and, in fact, some of their fears were realized. Print removes a part of learning from the available chain of personal confrontations. In the oral culture, the old folks are the repositories of the wisdom of culture (Rosenberg, 1987, p. 76). The elderly have somewhat being discounted in the technological society, not because of any mischievous reason, but because of the fact that wisdom is also available in books. Print technology has eliminated redundancy that was inevitable in oral traditions. Ambiguity has also been eliminated. For grammar, brevity is important for the sake of memory (Rosenberg, 1987, p. 83). People no longer need to memorize passages since the invention provides for a means to store and retrieve information whenever there is a need. Nothing can be afar from the reality when we say that oral traditions are dying out, and new media is largely displacing the age-old technology (Foley, p. 9). However, even in the most high-technology societies, oral traditions exist in the form of genres alongside newspapers, the internet and books. There are, in fact other worlds where mass-paperback publication and computers have not fully manifested hence they heavily rely on oral traditions as their principal communications medium. It is evident that there has been a noteworthy impact on the revolution of printing technology. The impact is evidently on the oral cultures and traditions. The changes have been widely noticed as people have been subjected to frequent changes. Many would testify to the benefits that the revolution has brought despite the fact that some nations in terms of technology are still lagging behind. Bibliography Cook, N. Technological revolutions and the Gutenberg myth [Internet], The new media theory reader. Retrieved from [Accessed 10 April, 2013] Dickinson, P. Orality in literacy: Listening to indigenous writing [Internet]. Post-colonialism and the native born. Retrieved from [Accessed 12 April, 2013] Dittmar, J. 2009. Ideas, technology and economic change [Internet] The impact of the printing press. Retrieved from [Accessed 16 April, 2013] Foley, J. Comparative oral traditions [Internet]. Retrieved from [Accessed 15 April, 2013] Mafu, S. (2004) From the oral tradition to the information era. International journal on multicultural societies (IJMS), Vol 6, No. 1: 53-78. Ong, W. (2005) Orality and literacy: the technologizing of the word. London: Routledge Phinney, T. A brief history of type [Internet]. Retrieved from [Accessed 15 April, 2013]. Rosenberg, B. (1987) The complexity of oral tradition. Oral tradition, 2/1(1987): 73-90. Summit, J. Technology and the transmission of oral tradition in the contemporary Jewish community [Internet]. 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The revolution has been seen as the most significant inventions in the history of humans (Cook, p. 12). This is because it made it possible to put more knowledge and information into the hands of people at reduced costs in less time. Learning and literacy have since spread rapidly and widely than before. The development has had an effect on the human society created by making communication in printed forms. Learning has been made accessible to the common person. This is because the information and all forms of communication needed to be available for the common person.

The achievement of broad learning and literacy makes the story of printing revolutionary. Before print technology, oral culture existed. Storage of what is said for a long time became necessary over time. Written text was therefore, the only means of reliance. The orals form of communication and information storage were therefore, replaced by print technology. There is a strong belief since knowledge contained is believed to be accurate. The written word has replaced the spoken word. The printing press has replaced the written word.

In the modern society, the internet or computers are replacing the printing press. The revolution has also made an impact on people who use laptops, personal digital organizers and cell phones. There is constantly a disparity in the opinion among economic historians about the extent to which the new technology was a revolutionary innovation. Some described the move as a quantum jump with an argument that the innovation had begun to push down the information price. They also said that it is the western progress that should be owed much to the superior means with which information was stored and disseminated (Dittmar, 2009, p. 5). From a large-scale survey conducted, social historians have praised the innovation as having an impact and revolution on social issues.

The development and innovation brought about radical transformations in the intellectual life conditions. Historians have seen the printing technology as a facilitation of intellectual developments. This involved processes of recombining ideas and sharing them hence making intellectual skills valuable. There is an argument that via its fundamental and pervasive impact on several economic activities, the innovation may qualify as being a general-purpose technology (Dittmar, 2009, p. 6). Printing technology was then an urban technology.

This is because the printed media was mainly urban and was utilized in the urban areas. The cities and countries that adopted the innovation benefitted from them positively and localized spillovers in the accumulation of human capital. The spillovers led to growth in cities by exerting pressure on the returns of labor. This, in turn, made cities dynamic as far as culture is concerned thus attracting migrants. Migration drove city growth because high wages were offered and there were attractive economic and cultural opportunities that were available (Dittmar, 2009, p. 8). Print media played a major role in the development and acquisition of skills that were essential to businesspersons and merchants.

Print media contributed to technological change, accumulation of human capital and the spread of literacy. It fostered the emergence of competencies, dispositions and aptitudes that suited and reflected the ideal commercial environment. For merchants who were engaged in long-distance and large-scale trade, the ability to keep sophisticated accounts and numeracy were associated with better returns (Dittmar, 2009, p. 8). The new technology was mainly associated with development of an urban public sphere and the emergence of the culture of information exchange.

Print media was a trade that was widely done, but countries with a printing press had more benefits from the technology than those that did not have. The main reason here was because print media were costly to transport, sensitive to damp and heavy (Dittmar, 2009, p. 11). Despite the challenges, the innovation spread across the world, and it was adopted in no time.

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