Print Media: Books, Newspaper, Magazine Etc
MODULE 3 MEDIA OF COMMUNICATION
Unit 1 Print Media: Books, Newspaper, Magazine etc
Unit 2 Book Publishing
Unit 3 Broadcast Media: Radio Television and Radio
Unit 4 Narrowcast media: Film and Cinema, Cable Television
Unit 5 The New Media: Online Newspapers and Magazines, Internet Radio etc
UNIT 1 PRINT MEDIA: BOOKS, NEWSPAPER, MAGAZINE ETC
1.0 Introduction: This unit examines books, newspapers, and magazines.
2.0 Objectives:
Explain the meaning and origin of books.
Discuss the meaning and origin of newspapers.
Discuss the meaning and origin of magazines.
3.0 Main Content
3.1 The Printing Revolution
Marshall McLuhan argued that printing is key to modern consciousness because it allowed mass communication.
Early Printing:
Chinese used wooden block presses as early as A.D. 600 and movable clay type by A.D. 1000.
Korea used simple movable metal type in the 13th century.
Gutenberg's Innovation (around 1446):
Perfected printing technology using metal type crafted from lead molds.
Movable type was durable and letters could be arranged and rearranged.
Produced virtually identical copies.
Gutenberg's Approach:
Focused on quality over quantity due to reverence for the Bible.
Used high-quality paper and ink.
Impact:
The first Gutenberg Bible appeared in 1456.
By the end of the century, printing operations existed in 12 European countries.
The continent was flooded with 20 million volumes of 7,000 titles in 35,000 different editions.
Early Settlers in the New World:
Brought oriented books with them.
Books weren't central to their lives initially.
The first printing press arrived in North America in 1638, operated by Cambridge Press.
Printing was limited to religious and government documents.
The first book printed was The Whole Booke of Psalms (Bay Psalm Book) in 1644.
Publishing required permission from the colonial government.
Books continued to grow rapidly as printing technology improved.
3.2 Books
3.2.1 Development of Books
Origin: Development of books began with the invention of writing over 5,000 years ago.
Early Alphabets:
Ideogrammatic alphabets (picture-based) appeared in Egypt (hieroglyphics), Sumer (cuneiform), and urban China.
Ideogrammatic alphabets required a huge number of symbols, limiting literacy to intellectual elites.
Sumerian Cuneiform: Sumerians developed cuneiform for more precise writing for international trade.
Syllable Alphabet: Around 1800 B.C., elements of a syllable alphabet emerged, using symbols to represent sounds.
Greek Alphabet: The syllable alphabet, aided by Semitic cultures, flowered in Greece around 800 B.C. and was perfected.
Used for writing in trading, aiding the Greek city-states in business.
Writing Mediums:
Sumerians used clay tablets.
Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans employed papyrus (rolls of sliced reeds pressed together).
Around 100 B.C., Romans began using parchment (prepared animal skins).
In A.D. 105, Ts'ai Lun, a Chinese bureaucrat, perfected a paper-making process using mulberry tree bark, water, rags, and a frame for drying.
Literacy:
Emergence of literacy changed social and cultural rules of preliterate times.
Communication was still limited because writers could only reach a few literates with handwritten scrolls or letters.
3.2.2 Convergence in Books
Internet's Impact: The Internet is changing how books are distributed and sold.
E-publishing: Publication of books initially or exclusively online offers a new way for writers to publish ideas.
Changing Form: The physical form of books is changing.
E-publishing includes d-books (digital books) and print on demand (POD).
Many d-books are designed to be read on handheld computers called e-books.
3.3 Newspaper
3.3.1 History of Newspaper
Renaissance Europe: Handwritten newsletters circulated privately among merchants, containing information about wars, economic conditions, and social customs.
Early Printed Newspapers: Appeared in Germany in the late 1400s as news pamphlets or broadsides, often sensationalized.
Reported atrocities against Germans in Transylvania by Vlad Tsepes Drakul (Count Dracula).
English-Speaking World:
Earliest predecessors were corantos, small news pamphlets produced when events occurred.
The first successively published title was The Weekly Newes of 1622.
Followed by various titles in the newsbook format in the 1640s and 1650s.
The London Gazette of 1666 was the first true newspaper in English, and the only officially sanctioned newspaper for a generation.
Development in England:
The press developed under the authoritarian atmosphere of the early seventeenth century.
Corantos were printed in English in Holland in 1620.
Englishmen Nathaniel Butter, Thomas Archer, and Nicholas Bourne printed their own occasional news sheets but stopped in 1641.
Regular, daily accounts of local news started appearing in other news sheets called diurnals.
Early Newspapers:
In Italy, daily events bulletins called Acta Diurna were published as early as 59 B.C. and posted publicly.
The earliest forerunner of the modern newspaper is credited to the Chinese with the publication of Tsing Pao at about 500 A.D.
The first newspaper published in Germany was founded in 1609 by Egenolph Emmel.
By 1633, there were at least 16 newspapers in Germany.
Early American Newspapers:
In 1704, postmaster Jelm Campell and Bartholomew Green published The Boston News-Letter.
In 1721, The News-letter faced competition from The New England Courant published by James Franklin (Benjamin Franklin's older brother).
The Courant was popular and controversial, known for editorial crusades against both church and state.
In 1729, Benjamin Franklin took over a family newspaper in Philadelphia, renaming it The Pennsylvania Gazette, and the Virginia Gazette.
The Virginia Gazette was crucial due to Virginia's influence on American independence.
In 1734, John Peter Zenger published The New York Weekly to counter Bradford’s New York Gazette, which expressed the government line.
Zenger was arrested and charged with seditious libel for criticizing the colonial government but won the case, establishing “Truth as a defense Against Libel”. His lawyer was Andrew Hamilton.
Post-American Independence:
In 1790, the Congress adopted the first 10 amendments to the constitution, called The Bills of Rights.
The First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press …”
3.3.2 Beginnings of Newspaper in America
First Attempt:
Benjamin Harris, an English printer, started a newspaper in 1690 titled Publick Occurrences, Both Foreign and Domestick but was stopped because he was critical of the Indians.
First Newspaper:
Publick Occurrences appeared in Boston in 1690 but was suppressed, and its publisher arrested.
It remained forgotten until 1845 when the only known surviving example was discovered in the British Library.
First Successful Newspaper:
The Boston News-Letter, begun by postmaster John Campbell in 1704, was heavily subsidized but had limited circulation.
Two more papers appeared in the 1720s in Philadelphia and New York.
By the eve of the Revolutionary War, about two dozen papers were issued in all the colonies.
Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania remained centers of American printing.
Influence: Articles in colonial papers, conceived by revolutionary propagandists, influenced public opinion from reconciliation with England to political independence.
After the War:
By the end of the war in 1783, there were forty-three newspapers in print.
The press played a vital role in the new nation.
Early journalism was libelous by modern standards, reflecting the rough political life.
The ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791 guaranteed freedom of the press.
By 1814, there were 346 newspapers.
Jacksonian Populist 1830s:
Advances in printing and paper-making technology led to newspaper growth and the emergence of the
#### 3.3.2 Beginnings of Newspaper in America
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Jacksonian Populist 1830s:Advances in printing and paper-making technology led to newspaper growth and the emergence of the penny press.
This era saw the rise of papers like the New York Sun (1833), founded by Benjamin Day with the motto “It shines for all.”
The Sun cost one cent, making it affordable for the working class, and reached a wide audience.
Other penny papers included:
James Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald (1835)
Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune (1841)
Henry Raymond’s New York Times (1851)
These newspapers were politically independent and focused on the concerns of the common people.
The penny press brought about significant changes:
Increased the size of newspaper