Technology & Social Change
In the reading by Meyrowitz we get an in depth look at the four eras in media communication. The four eras are “Tribal/Oral Society”, “Civilizing/Scribal Phase”, the “Modern Era”, and the “Post Modern Era”. In Meyrowitz’s reading we see the transformation of communication and media through the years. Starting in the Tribal/Oral Society we learn from the film Matter of Fact Printing Transforms Knowledge that in the early 14th century everything was passed down orally. Few people could read and write. In the film it gives us the idea that life was very close quarters. No one really ventured out of their already known mileage of their village because there was no telling about survival. We get a great example of how life was like in the oral age in the beginning of Meyrowitz’s piece. He talks about Gonja and how he had 7 sons. However when the times changed and history was now able to be written down, the story changes to Gonja having 5 sons. Gonja had an oral culture rather than written. With an oral culture we find that it is difficult because all your knowledge is in your head. And by that I mean there was not really a place to put your thoughts on paper or write it into a book etc. It was almost impossible to build off previous thoughts. In the film, We see how different the judicial system was because the older peoples minds were the rule because they have been around longer to remember more stuff. Much different from today where we have mass produced books. In the fil we also learned how due to plague, a lot of people were given inheritance and moved to more populated areas. Roads were built and towns were created. The economy took off and to make up for the deaths, people started reproducing. Schools opened and this gave people a chance to learn to read and write.

In the “Civilizing/Tribal Phase”, writing is more common. “Writing & books enables new ideas to be built upon previous knowledge!”(Soha 7). I thought this quote was fantastic because this is something I have never really thought of before reading this. Before reading and writing, everything was just a thought in your head. Now with the ability to read and write, it allows for people to write down those ideas, theories, equations, etc… and continue to perfect them. OR, if they happen to pass away, that knowledge is there for more people in the future to build off of. Also, this era expanded the variety of writings, which were previously dominated by churches and their scribes. This time period was right before the invention of the printing press, so books were not abundant and were very expensive. In the film we learned about the indulgences the church offered. An indulgence was to basically buy a ticket to “erase” a sin so you could go right to heaven and skip purgatory. However, the scribes could not keep up with the demands hand written. Then everything changed.

When Gutenberg invented the printing press, life changed forever. Now, any piece of writing could be mass produced easily and for an extremely cheaper cost. This invention was revolutionary because it opened the door to so many things in the media world. Now with books being produced it allowed people to gain more knowledge through reading and in an easier way. It took a time of people writing everything by hand to time of producing mass amounts just by putting ink on the metal blocks and pressing the page into it. A quote from the film, “one rare manuscript could go a stray but not thousands of printed versions” speaks volume to how impactful the printing press actually was. This transformed storing knowledge all in their heads to allowing them to write it all down and keeps records and expand on their work. It also made communication very much simpler than it was before in the previous eras. Indulgences were now being produced exceptionally fast. The printing press spread fast and really paved the way towards the modern era. Schools were opening and also started the movement for printing and publishing companies to open up, which was a new industry with mass production technology at their fingertips. On books you start seeing covers and labels from the printing companies. Without the printing press, the area and study of communication would not be nearly the same and honestly its weird to think where we would be in this field or even in life as a civilization without the printing press.