In order to form any conclusions about any possible effects of print, the effects, if any, of writing before the invention of the printing press need to be examined. Writing can be defined as ‘a translation of sound into a visual code’ (McLuhan 1962, page 22). The earliest writing was hieroglyphic or pictographic, and with these the visual code could be easily related to the meaning. However, the invention of the phonetic alphabet changed this by using a code which bore no relation to the meaning and in doing this, according to Marshall McLuhan, ‘split apart thought and action’ (McLuhan 1962, page 22). He suggests that the phonetic alphabet was the force which de-tribalized man but that, as literacy was a minority skill at this time, it could not have full affect. The invention of print, however, made literacy more and more widespread, and as such had a dramatic impact on society.
The ideas of Marshall McLuhan on media were first published in the 1960s when they had considerable impact, in many ways providing a new approach to media studies. However, his ideas have since been contested by a variety of critics, such as Elizabeth Eisenstein. Firstly, McLuhan divides the different types of medium into two categories; hot and cool. A predominantly hot medium requires very little participation by the audience, and this is how he defines print. The opposite to this is speech, a cool medium because ‘so little is given and so much has to be filled in by the listener’ (McLuhan 1995, page 23). McLuhan draws particular attention to the medieval manuscript culture which preceded print culture, explaining that medieval culture was based on the ear with punctuation being rare, and that the hand-written manuscripts were meant to be read aloud to an audience. He claims that the oral, or manuscript culture, allowed all the senses to function at once, whereas a print culture made writing separate from speech and the visual is thereby dominant. The advent of punctuation, according to McLuhan, allowed things to be expressed in print just as they can be expressed in speech, thus separating the eye from the ear. He therefore believes that the development of a print culture has greatly diminished the importance of the spoken word. McLuhan dates this print culture from the production of Gutenberg’s bible in early modern Europe, calling this period of transition from one culture to another the Gutenberg era.
Critics, such as Elizabeth Eisenstein have agreed that, in pointing to the social and psychological consequences of printing, Marshall McLuhan performed ‘a valuable service’. However, she disagrees with many of his views. Eisenstein argues that McLuhan overstated the extent to which the medieval culture was an oral one. She points to the fact that silent reading already occurred even before printing, in the pre-Gutenberg era, so that, although printing undoubtedly increased silent reading, it did not invent it. McLuhan assumed that the spread of silent reading diminished the importance of the spoken word, and here Eisenstein looks towards education; ‘Although the textbook industry flourished, classroom lectures never died’(Eisenstein 1990, page 92). Contrary to McLuhan, she claims that although print could, and did, convey spoken messages, it did not replace them. Sermons and public orations continued as they always had, as did poetry readings. The main effect of print in these areas was to cause orators to be more careful in what they said, bearing in mind the possible consequences of the publication of their words.
In producing his ideas, Marshall McLuhan uses evidence selectively, ignoring many factors which might weaken his case. One of the initial social effects of printing was that the traditional village storyteller disappeared. However, this did not have a dramatic impact as these figures were merely replaced by a literate reader who read aloud to the illiterate majority. The material used was the many cheap printed books and ballads which were being produced in abundance at the time. The significance of this situation is that, even after the invention of the printing press, the majority of the population received texts orally. The tradition of the storyteller may have died out, but it was replaced by a similar, and almost equally oral, culture. It was not until after the Education Act of 1870, which made education compulsory for all that our culture, in Britain at least, could be said to be truly dominated by print. This time difference, from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries, between the invention of the printing press and the creation of a print culture suggests that there were many other factors involved. These relate to the changing cultural, political and economic climate and increasing industrialisation which meant that even factory workers needed to be literate. McLuhan chooses to ignore these factors, but they suggest that his claim that the printing press was entirely responsible for the eradication of an oral culture cannot be upheld.
Neil Postman, who was writing in the 1970s and 1980s, theorised among other things on the educational effects of a society dominated by print. Postman’s primary aim in his work was to present the many negative aspects of a television culture and any possible bad effects which television might have on society. His arguments are therefore biased towards showing print culture, preceding television culture, as an age of enlightenment and greatness in order to help strengthen his arguments against television. Postman argues that the invention of the printing press and the consequent literate society which it produced, divided adults and children into the literate and the non-literate. Far from this being a negative affect, in his view learning to read in this print culture became an integral part of growing up. An increasing familiarity with the book culture of the adult world was a key aspect of the transition from childhood to adulthood. From this point Postman goes on to argue, controversially, that the medium of television has destroyed this by creating a world fully visible to both children and adults.
Both Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman explain logical thought as a direct consequence of a print culture. McLuhan suggests that scanning lines of print silently has affected thought processes, and that ‘literate man undergoes much separation of his imaginative, emotional and sense life’. Their argument is that it is this separation which allows thought to become more analytical and logical than it would otherwise be able to. They are both of the opinion that ‘it is no accident that the Age of Reason was co-existent with the growth of a print culture’ (Postman 1986, page 53). They also agree that, although analytic thought was still possible before the development of the printing press, ‘in a culture dominated by print, public discourse tends to be characterised by a coherent, orderly arrangement of facts and ideas’ (Postman 1986, page 52). In a culture of this kind, the public generally has the ability to comprehend this discourse. To illustrate this point Postman turns to the legal system, explaining that in a print-based culture lawyers are ‘well-educated, devoted to reason, and capable of impressive expositional argument’ (Postman 1986, page 53). To Postman, this is a perfect example of the capabilities and thought processes of Typographic Man, and from here he continues to argue that television is having a negative effect on culture as a whole, and destroying our ability for logical thought which was allowed by a print culture.
Elizabeth Eisenstein is much more cautious than McLuhan and Postman in describing the effects of print on the mind. She points out that, even today, we still know very little about how access to printed material affects human behaviour. Consequently there is a modern debate about the affects of pornography on society which is, as yet, unresolved. Undoubtedly, the production of intelligent and educational written material has had a beneficial affect on culture as a whole. However, ‘Book reading did not stop short with guides to godly living or practical manuals and texts’ (Eisenstein 1980, page 130). By this Eisenstein refers to the production of a less desirable type of literature, such as the scandal sheets of the eighteenth century and the less reputable tabloid newspapers of today. Since printing began, alongside the production great works of knowledge, printers have churned-out large quantities of this type of material which, contrary to McLuhan and Postman’s ideas, are unlikely to increase the aptitude for logical thought.
It is safe to assume that printing makes knowledge accessible to all, although it needs to be accompanied with the necessary cultural and political conditions making literacy compulsory for all. However, this does not necessarily lead to a society that is much more knowledgeable than one that uses oral communication as its foundation. In a non-literary society, where information is conveyed orally, to avoid the information it is necessary to avoid the whole of society. The only way this is possible is by living a completely solitary life. By contrast, reading and writing are predominantly silent and solitary activities. Consequently, in a literary society, information is easy to avoid, simply by choosing not to read what is available. This counters Postman and McLuhan’s arguments on logical thought in literary societies as ‘such coherence as a person achieves is very largely the result of his personal selection, adjustment and elimination of items.’ Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, writing in France in the 1950s, examined the impact of the printing press. They suggest that printing, on the whole ‘could not be said to have hastened the acceptance of new ideas or knowledge’ (Febvre and Martin 1976, page 278). They accuse it instead of initially ‘popularising long-cherished beliefs, strengthening traditional prejudices and giving authority to seductive fallacies’ (Febvre and Martin 1976, page 278). Printing then, to some, was an obstacle and not a gateway to a new way of thinking. It does not necessarily follow, therefore, that in a print culture the public will be either more informed, or think in a more logical way, than they would in an oral culture.
Marshall McLuhan has come up with various theories about the impact of print on human perceptions of space and time. He suggests that printing has shortened human memories by the reliance on information being stored more safely and durably in a book. The rationalising aspects of the print culture encouraged a need for maps and timetables, and increased the importance of perspective in paintings. In this way it gave birth to a craving for a lifestyle reflecting uniformity and rigidity, and so the complex systems of indexing and cataloguing that we have today came into being. Continuing the work of Harold Innis, a Canadian economic historian who was writing in the 1950s, McLuhan claims that print, as a portable medium, allowed information to be circulated across space. Before printing ‘information had to be conveyed by drifting texts and vanishing manuscripts’ (Eisenstein 1980, page 53). In order to secure documents from loss, the medieval convention was to lock them up, whereas the post-print era could duplicate the document and so circulate the data to the public. This concept of preserving valuable information by making it public, has proved far more effective than the pre-printing tradition, in which documents were frequently lost, destroyed or damaged. This is possibly the most valuable, and least criticised, area of McLuhan’s research into the effects of print, as it draws attention to a new area which, with the exception of Innis, few researchers had previously contemplated.
The technology of print communication can be seen as promoting both individualism and uniformity. Marshall McLuhan has called print ‘the technology of individualism’ (McLuhan 1962, page 158). He claims that it began the practice of silent reading by making printed material easily accessible to individuals. It is this which promotes individualism as the printed book is, for the most part, intended to be read alone and silently, thereby also developing the sense of personal privacy which is so characteristic of modern society. At the same time, print allowed an increase in governmental control ‘by making the vernacular a mass medium print created a new instrument of political centralism previously unknown’ (McLuhan 1962, page 238). An example of this uniformity is the 1562 issue of the Book of Homilies to be read from every pulpit. Print, in bringing increased literacy, played an important part in unifying regional dialects, which encouraged a steady awareness of nationalisation. This was helped further by the further production of maps which the printing press allowed, giving people on a large scale, for the first time, a visual appreciation of the nation. Print therefore, by encouraging both the consumption of literary material by individuals alone and a greater sense of nationalism, simultaneously increased both individualism and uniformity.
Critics have agreed that Marshall McLuhan’s reflections on the effects of printing on perceptions of space and time have been valuable. Elizabeth Eisenstein agrees with his ideas that print strengthened notions of nationalism, through the production of maps and political uniformity, and individualism. She explains that; ‘to hear an address delivered, people have to come together; to read a printed report encourages individuals to draw apart’ (Eisenstein 1980, page 132). Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman are quick to promote the idea that print allows logical and analytical thinking to occur. To Postman this is positive, compared to television which, in his view, promotes ‘incoherence and triviality’ (Postman 1986, page 81). To McLuhan it has torn us from our tribal roots and severed our senses, and that as such ‘Schizophrenia may be a necessary consequence of literacy’ (McLuhan 1962, page 22). However, their arguments do not take into consideration the wider cultural factors, and as such need to be viewed with caution. Although print makes knowledge more accessible to all, and has had dramatic effects on our culture and society, it does not necessarily follow that a literate society is greatly more knowledgeable than a non-literate one.
March 1998