Communications and Media

People have an insatiable need to communicate with each other. We are constantly seeking opportunities and means to express our feelings, thoughts, and opinions. The importance of communication cannot be over-emphasized. Means of communication have evolved from signs, oral, written, printed and eventually electronically. Through the development, the ease of communication has brought the world closer and allowed sharing of ideas, technology, and ways of life. The earlier means of communication were slow in dissemination of information and knowledge. Oral communication could only be done in close proximity while the early written scrolls were limited in their use to only chosen few. In addition, it took a considerable amount of time to copy or transfer information from one scroll to another.

McLuhan (1964) coined the phrase The Medium is the Message to imply that these materials were more important than the information that they contained. For example, the papyrus scrolls put the Egyptian priests in charge of the calendar. By using the light bulb analogy, McLuhan (1964) argued that a medium affects the society in which it plays a role not by the content delivered over the medium, but by the characteristics of the medium itself (8). In the analogy, he explains that the bulb has a social effect in that it creates space during night time that would otherwise be occupied by darkness. The access and use of information plays a big part in the social and cultural aspects of a society. McLuhan further states that any medium of communication will bring a change in pace, scale, shape or patterns of human association, affairs, and action that will inevitably result in social and cultural consequences.

Hunt (2004) suggests that the printed work, through the language used was the key to the revolutions aberration. She further states that, vitriolic pamphlet is nonetheless significant because it shows that the revolutionaries themselves recognized the importance of language in the revolution (19). After the revolution, printing continued to play a major role in the building of the new society.

There was an increase in the number of periodicals to hundreds after the revolution as compared to a few dozen which had controlled information prior to the revolution. This form of revolution was also experienced in North America where printing allowed rapid propagation of ideas, resulting in knowledge and cultural movements that were far harder to destroy.  However, this was not possible in the British society because of a strong oral culture. The author further points out that print medias ability to shape and guide the society was a critical component before, during, and after the revolution.

The revolutions can be attributed to elevation in literacy among the people as a direct result of the print media. Through this media, there was an increase in the speed and volume of communication and this led to an increase in the level of literacy in the society. By enabling one to communicate with many at the same time and one to read many authors work within a short period of time, there was a wide awareness on the part of the individuals.

The print media has also played a role in language development, formation and fixation. McLuhan (1960 pp. 126) explains that the 19th century editors improved Shakespeares work by providing it with punctuations. The punctuations came into use after the introduction of printing and they were able to bring out clearly the meaning of printed works. Prior to printing, McLuhan states that punctuation was mainly rhetorical and auditory rather than grammatical (126). The editors were also able to record some words such as assassination and many more from Shakespeares work. McLuhan goes on to illustrate how printing led to development of the now modern English by his illustration, I was given a book which was an improvement from the old version Me waes gegiefen an boc (133). He goes on to explain that print implied the possibility of grammars, uniform texts, and lexicons visually present to as many as they were required. Printing was therefore a powerful agent for the development of uniformity in language. This was further boosted by standardization and mass production of printed materials.

The rise of the print media can also be credited to the development of a new culture. Printing divided the society into the literate and the illiterate. With the increase in printed materials, the illiterate became the inferior in the society. This led to the rise of learning to read and made education more desirable. Printing also revolutionized the way education was disseminated from an oral dominated teaching to reliance on printed work. Education was made easier and faster with the need to memorize a lot of oral information having declined. Books were no longer a source of information in the class but they also acted as reference materials.

In religion, printing brought about the mass production of the Bible. This encouraged and aided the early Christian missionaries to spread the religion. The spread of the religion brought about a complete change of the social and cultural structure as was experienced in Africa where the Bible is now accepted as an African book. Earlier, the printing of the Bible had led to the challenging of the authority of the Roman church which was followed by the establishment of the Protestantism to replace the old Roman authority.

In trade, printing played a major role in establishment of the all new book trade. Books were multiplied and spread to all corners of the world by book merchants. The multiplication of the books made them less precious, easily available, and could now be used by the majority of the population.

The relevance of printing in the society is summarized by McLuhan who quotes Usher stating that the invention of printing marked the separation of the medieval and the modern technologies. Printing changed the way of life, beliefs, and enabled the transmission of knowledge and technology from one area to another. It gave way to the electronic age that has now converted the world into a global village, a term that McLuhan coined way back in 1964.