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From pen to print - a revolution in communications? - The coming point

5 important questions on From pen to print - a revolution in communications? - The coming point

What media did medieval societies use?

Medieval societies employed a wide range of interconnected oral, written and visual media. Face-to-face exchange, ceremonial rituals, symbols and images predominated, while correspondence and written records pervaded literate culture.

What was a new breakthrough in the world of media?

Movable type made of clay, wood and metal was an early Chinese invention, while woodblock books were printed in China, Japan, and Korea from the 1200s.
What was new was Europe's systematic exploitation of mechanical printing technologies from the fifteenth century onwards.
The breakthrough came in the 1440s, when Johannes Gutenberg of Mainz combined movable metal type, a new oil-based printer's ink, and a wooden hand press, and in so doing, led the way to the mechanical mass reproduction of a myriad of printed goods.

What did the rate of increasing printing shops rely on?

The rate of increase was uneven and depended both on the degree of press freedom that governments and churches allowed, and on the temperature of religious, political, or cultural debate at any one time.

What did the story of Simplicissimus show?

Simplicissimus's story shows how both pictures and words could act to spread knowledge among all classes of people, and how the form of printed letters began to affect people's writing.

What changed because of rises in literacy?

Rises in literacy alongside increased variety and availability of printed texts, changed reading habits from an intensive experience of a few texts to an extensive one, sampling many.
Reading was a sociable experience, with material of all kinds being read out aloud to companions, encouraging discussion. For the extended reading public, print became a form of entertainment as well as a means of disseminating information, fostering new genres, such as the novel, that particularly appealed to female readers.

The question on the page originate from the summary of the following study material:

Early Modern History

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