Zines, Social Media, and the Printing Press

Zines, created by and created for an underground culture, are intended to work directly against commercial culture and consumer capitalism. What I find interesting is that zines are directly made possible by the invention of the printing press, and consumer capitalism was also made possible (or at least heavily facilitated) by the invention of the printing press. To have two directly opposed forces — one intended to break up the population into groups of markets rather than individuals with their own hopes, desires, and personalities; and the other intended to speak to a crowd composed of completely different and unique individuals — arise from one revolutionary invention is really interesting, because it speaks to the way that any new media technology can and will be used for a wide variety of purposes that the technology wasn’t intended for. Zines work against every traditional or consumer idea for a business — disregarding continuity or organization, strict adherence to topics or genre, and the idea that a profit should be made is so different from conventional media that it’s almost unthinkable. The printing press was created to make it easier to spread knowledge, which fits the idea of a zine. But the printing press was also mostly used for spreading religious texts and information/propaganda from the government, as a way to be able to spread mass information to their citizens. In contrast, zines aren’t intended to be spread to the entire population or create any kind of uniform thinking; they are instead meant to connect different people through an underground, noncommercial, nonprofessional manner. It’s amazing to see how a technological innovation — in this case, the printing press — can be used for such wildly opposing reasons.

The use of the printing press for commercial purposes (like black Friday sale flyers from huge businesses intended to promote consumerism) and underground purposes (like zines) makes me think of how other technology can be used for wildly opposing reasons. Social media, for example, can be used to connect long distance friends, as a platform for promoting political issues, as a way to garner attention for issues that the mainstream media would have passed over (like #BlackLivesMatter and the riots in Baltimore), and as a way for corporations to engage in direct contact with their publics. It’s not easy to say that one technology is “bad” or another one is “good,” because any technology can be used in ways that were never imagined when the technology was first created. Especially with the advent of social media (including blogs), regular people were allowed to speak to broader audiences. With “citizen journalists,” the line between the media and consumers is blurred, with people being able to contribute and give their own perspective on current events. Consumers can become producers, which levels out the playing field and prevents the mass media from completing controlling the topics being discussed.

People will always fear that new innovations — writing, the printing press, the internet, social media — are going to cause the downfall of man, even though these innovations can all be used for wildly different purposes, such as the printing press and zines. It’s hard to measure how one innovation impacts a culture, because of the spectrum of uses; but it’s worth it to consider that complexity when studying new technology for any reason.

Articles referenced:

Duncombe, S. (1997). Chapter 1: Zines. Notes From the Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture. Bloomington: Microcosm, pp. 6–21.

Eisenstein, E. (2011). Aspects of the printing revolution. In D. Crowley and P. Heyer (eds.), Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society (6th edition). New York: Routledge, 78–86.

Meyers, E. A. (2012). ‘Blogs give regular people the chance to talk back’: Rethinking ‘professional’ media hierarchies in new media. New Media & Society, 14(6), 1022–1038.