Week 3 Study Questions

BALES  | HISTORY OF COMMUNICATIONS

1. Gutenberg's printing press , 26-letter phonetic alphabet used in European societies, the already well thought out principle of movable type, and the machinery associated with the  grape press. Also, the development of oil-based inks and high quality rag paper, which also came after Gutenberg's breakthrough.

3. The earliest printed books were produced using wooden blocks with the letters carved in them. The blocks would be dipped in ink and then pressed onto paper. Most of the time this was done by monks. Soon, the monks, and everyone else, realized that handwriting everything took way too long. People needed a way to make printing faster and the printing press was invented. Aside from the time it took to print, there were more changes to come in printing too. Now, we are able to print in color. Before the printing press, books and reading were only for church and government leaders. Only the most educated and rich people had books. Then they had the power to teach all the regular people just what they wanted them to know.

5. Literacy standards have dropped in recent years. Is it possible to raise them in a digital age? There is little freedom -- personal, economic, religious -- without literacy.It will be crucial for  individuals to have proficient literacy skills to make a difference to their well-being.

6.Communications by road, rail, ship and aircraft, served to spread more memes faster and they in turn encouraged the creation of ever better means of travel. Before the printing press, memetic evolution was much more prominent as stories were retold/copied with changes from one person to another.But now that technology makes it easy for many people to see the same information, memetic evolution has slowed down dramatically. Before printing it would take a minimum of weeks for an idea to work itself across, say, Europe.Now it takes a minimum of milliseconds. Before the web you had to publish a paper or convene a major international meeting to place an issue in front of most of the world's experts on a subject; now you can do that in the morning and have everyone's first response on your desk by the afternoon.