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Introduction to Mass Communication MCM 101

LESSON 13

MASS MEDIA HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Before we count on various forms of mass media and its impact on the growth of societies and its

importance in the contemporary world, it is pertinent to see in little more detail how it all began under

circumstances which seem difficult to believe in modern times.

Mankind has always been interested in knowing about the physical things around and the ideas on the

human life as structured by the intellectuals of the day. The only problem was the missing link of mass

medium which should work as a conduit to transport feelings of scholars to others.

There is no trace available as how people from distant territories would exchange views and information by

the sixth century. There is a general impression that it would have been through the travelers and war

expeditions that might fetch information about far flung parts of the world. But traveling was no easy

business and in the absence of maps and knowledge of geography and routes only few would dare to

explore the world and return safely back to their hometown. Since recorded history is not available of those

times it is left only to our imagination how mass communication would have been going around the

civilizations which were old and developed enough to assume a shape of an organized society.

The availability of languages was only ample to accomplish the task of limited scale inter-personal

communication. Sending a message to many was still an enigma.

A breakthrough was made by the invention of paper but it was still far from the concept of mass

communication.

Books first fascination towards mass media

It is not known as what the first book was or when exactly it saw light of the day. Traces are

available to say with some certainty that in the 7th century people had some idea about books. Though scant

and written on very limited topics, these books can be symbolized as the pioneer in mass communication as

they were able, though on a very limited scale, to carry message to many others irrespective of cast, color,

religion, rich or poor.

Four early Periods in the History of the Books

· 7th to 13th Century: The age of religious "manuscript" book production. Books in this period are

entirely constructed by hand, and are largely religious texts whose creation is meant as an act of

worship.

· 13th to 15th Century: The secularization of book production. Books are beginning to be produced

that do not serve as objects of worship, but that try to explain something about the observable

world. The difficulty with the spread of such knowledge was that production is still taking place via

pre-print - manuscript - methods.

The production of secular books is driven by two things:

The rise of universities in Europe, spreading from Italy.

The return of the crusaders in the 13th century, who bring with them texts

from

Byzantium. These books, written during the Greek and Roman periods in history, focus on

this-world concerns.

· 15th to 16th Century: The first printed books. These are print versions of traditional works like the

Bible, books of hours (prayer books) and the religious calendars.

· 16th to 17th Century: New information is put into books that have important consequences on

European life and society.

Book - from hand-written to printing

The 7th to the 9th century was the heyday of the "illuminated manuscript". Production of these

works took place in the monasteries scattered across Europe. These religious retreats were the repositories

of those texts of Greece and Rome which survived in Europe. Monks in the monasteries made copies of

Introduction to Mass Communication MCM 101

the books in their care - both religious and secular manuscripts. However, they did not contribute much

more to the advancement of that intellectual tradition, because they were not engaged in thinking about the

relationship between the works in their care and the world outside the monastery.

During this time, the production of Bibles was the place where the

arts of the monastic scribes, and later lay artists, flowered. It was here

that the most elaborate and beautiful illumination found its outlet and

the manuscript books from this period represent the height of the art

of decoration.

An illuminated manuscript is the Irish Book of Kells:

The image shown here is an eight-circle cross - one of the central

motifs of this manuscript, all of which focus on aspects of Christ's life and message. According to historian

Meehan, the Book of Kells is the most lavishly decorated of any manuscript produced between the 7th and

9th centuries.

The most important thing about the manuscript books of this period is that they were objects of religious

veneration. They were seen as consecrated objects. Their creation was an act of religious devotion. The

monks, who sat for years, working on single chapters of the Bible, were not reproducing books. They were

making the word of God manifest in the world.

This is the "carpet page" from the Book of Durrow, created around 680 A.D. The

woven pattern on this page is called "interlace" and exhibits both zoomorphic and

abstract elements in its design.

The detail of interlace in the Book of Durrow is more refined by the time the

illuminators get to the creation of the Book of Kells. In the Book of Durrow, the

interlace covers the page, in the Book of Kells, it becomes part of larger images.

In this detail from the Book of Kells, showing the heads of lions

and chalices spouting vines, we can more clearly see the

zoomorphic aspects of interlace.

However, in interlacing, the interweaving of the bodies of snakes

and lions, of peacock and fishes, chalices and vines, is not

intended to be a naturalistic representation of the existing world. These images are schematic and symbolic.

The images are meant to represent some aspect of Christ's life.

We think of modern books as being illustrated, but the illustration and photographs, the images, are usually

distinct from the text. In these early manuscripts dedicated to God, the two were not so separate.

Book of Durrow

First page of Saint Jerome's translation of the four gospels into Vulgate.

Book of Kells

First page of a genealogy

of Christ

Introduction to Mass Communication MCM 101

If you look carefully at these pages, you can see that the decoration is carried into the text. There is continuity between the words

and the decoration, a continuity that suggests that the illuminated religious manuscript is an attempt to convey the beauty of

God's message to mankind.

Early analysis on manuscripts

For all their beauty, as mentioned above, the manuscripts of the monasteries did little to affect life

in Europe. Primarily this comes about as a consequence of the inaccessibility of the monastic libraries.

Instead of books being openly available as they are today, manuscript books were mostly locked up in

monasteries strewn across Europe. Given the amount of time and energy and financial resources that went

into their production, books were far too valuable to make available to the general public. So there was no

way to use them for scholarship, even the few secular texts that may have been available.

This problem was compounded by the lack of a uniform cataloging system in the monasteries. So, even if

one did have access to the library of a monastery, there was no way of knowing what was in the collection,

or where it might be located.

The period between the 13th and 16th centuries saw the rise of a print-dominated society, one that moved

away from the Church's monopoly of information that existed during the manuscript book period. This was

initially fueled by the reproduction of classic texts of antiquity. It was further fueled by the development of

new kinds of books in science. These factors led to the development of books as elements of propaganda

and religious education. This is not to argue that print drove all those changes. Clearly it did not. There were

social and political and economic changes that made print important. Those changes might not have

happened as quickly or perhaps at all without print.

The shift in consciousness that occurred with this period of history is the rise of the notion that reality

could be represented. This period saw the advent and expansion of a European-dominated world economy

and the beginning of a system of international competition for trade among independent states.

The technology of the printing press, coupled with the surrounding changes in the political/economic

system, wrought changes in the ways in which Europe saw its place in the world.

Ancient history of printing

The original method of printing was block printing, pressing sheets of paper into individually

carved wooden blocks. It is believed that block printing originated in China, and the earliest known printed

text, the Diamond Sutra (a Buddhist scripture, was printed in China in 868 A.D.)

The technique was also known in Europe, where it was mostly used to print Bibles. Because of the

difficulties inherent in carving massive quantities of minute text for every block, and given the levels of

peasant illiteracy at the time, texts such as the "Pauper's Bibles" emphasized illustrations and used words

sparsely. As a new block had to be carved for each page, printing different books was an incredibly time

consuming activity.

Moveable clay and metal type are processes much more efficient than hand copying. The use of movable

type in printing was invented in 1041 AD by Bi Sheng in China. Bi used clay type, which broke easily, but

eventually Goryeo (Korea) sponsored the production of metal type (a type foundry was established by the

Korean government in the early 15th century). Since there are thousands of Chinese characters (Koreans

also used Chinese characters in literature), the benefit of the technique is not as apparent as with alphabetic

based languages.

Movable type did spur, however, additional scholarly pursuits in China and facilitated more creative modes

of printing. Nevertheless, movable type was never extensively used in China until the European style

printing press was introduced.

Introduction to Mass Communication MCM 101

From China to Germany

Although probably unaware of the Chinese/Korean printing methods (with substantial evidence

for both sides of argument), Gutenberg refined the technique with the first widespread use of movable type,

where the characters are separate parts that are inserted to make the text. Gutenberg is also credited with

the first use of an oil-based ink, and using "rag" paper introduced into Europe from China by way of

Muslims, who had a paper mill in operation in Baghdad as early as 794. Before inventing the printing press

in 1440s, Gutenberg had worked as a goldsmith. Without a doubt, the skills and knowledge of metals that

he learned as a craftsman were crucial to the later invention of the press.

The claim that Gutenberg introduced or invented the printing press in Europe is not accepted by all. The

other candidate advanced is the Dutchman Laurens Janszoon Coster.

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