Origin of Print Culture
Print technology is known to have first evolved in China, Japan and Korea. The technology was quite simple as it was based on a system of hand printing. The method of transferring the impression of the content by rubbing the paper against a rigid surface with emerged print patterns was used in China from AD 594 for printing books.
For a long period, China remained the major producer of printed materials. When China started conducting its civil service examinations, the demand for its textbooks increased which was only possible with print technology. Soon, the print scope was increased and now it was not confined to scholars and officials. The traders started using print technology to keep track of their businesses.
Reading became popular among the rich and educated group and various writers and poets started publishing their art. This practice further boosted the demand for more advanced print technologies. New printing techniques and mechanical printing presses were imported from the west. The article is important for the examination and to solve print culture and the modern world question answers.
Print in Japan
Around AD 768-770, the Buddhist missionaries brought the hand-printing technology from China to Japan. Visual materials being printed led to the growth of numerous publishing practices. Somewhere around the mid and late nineteenth century, the collection of illustrative paintings became a popular urban culture. The bookstores and libraries started keeping a variety of hand-printed stuff in them. Some of them were books on women, some were on musical instruments etc.
How did Print Come to Europe?
Returning to Europe after exploring China, Marco Polo brought with him the knowledge of woodblock printing. Soon, this technology expanded to all other parts of Europe. As the demands for books increased globally, the book vendors started exporting the books to different countries throughout the world. The handwritten manuscripts were obviously not capable of meeting the constantly increasing demands of the books. This was the reason woodblock printing technology started aiding the printing of textiles, playing cards and religious pictures with brief texts, etc in Europe. In the 1430s, Johann Gutenberg developed the very first printing press made ever.
Gutenberg and the Printing Press
Gutenberg was a professional in polishing stones. With his knowledge, he engaged the existing technology to develop an innovative mechanical printing process. With his model, the first book he printed was the Bible. However, with his adaptations of the new technology, the practice of producing textbooks by hand was not replaced completely. In fact, the books printed for the richer group printed using Gutenberg’s method were left with some empty spaces intended for some kind of hand-printed artworks. In the period of a hundred years (between 1450-1550), printing presses were established in almost all countries of Europe. This transition from handwritten manuscripts to mechanical printing, later on, formed the print revolution.
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Johann Gutenberg Printing Press
The Print Revolution
The print revolution is a term used for a period in which a crucial change in the methodology of producing and circulating written (or printed) materials was introduced. This change from handwritten scripts to printed documents boosted the flow of knowledge and ideas in more fast and convenient ways. Due to this, access to knowledge became much easier for the people. The print culture attracted more and more audiences and started influencing the social thinking of the people to a large extent. This also led to several kinds of debates or contradictions on different ideas and beliefs of different people (or groups).
A New Reading Audience
Before the print revolution, the prices of books were significantly high and hence were not affordable to common people other than elites. The print revolution had a huge impact on printing and reading culture. The prices of the books dropped abruptly and the markets were flooded with numerous new books being published for various domains. Still, there was a challenge for the publishers. The written texts on the books can only be read or understood by the literates. While most of the common people were bound to the option of listening to the readouts of the sacred texts. This challenge was overcome by embedding more and more pictorial graphics and representations on the printed materials intended for readers with lesser reading skills. The orally transmitted and the printed materials started getting diffused to each other. This new reading culture also increased the literacy percentage of the people significantly.
How did Print Come to India?
In 1579, some Catholic priests printed the first book in Tamil at Cochin. Although the English press came much later in India, the English East India Company started to import the presses from the late seventeenth century. James Augustus Hickey edited a weekly magazine named the Bengal Gazette. Hickey published advertisements and a lot of gossip about the senior officials of the company in India as well. By the end of the eighteenth century, numerous newspapers and journals appeared in the print industry.
Public Debates and Religious Reforms
Print culture in India provided media for the circulation of numerous perspectives, ideas and beliefs. This also boosted up the emerging contradictions between the different ideas or perspectives. The print culture provided the platforms to the social and religious reformers to criticise the existing practices, raising awareness, debate and campaign for reform. The newspapers and printed tracts played an important role in carrying out these debates and shape their nature. With the emergence of new ideas, various controversies also erupted between the social and religious reformers. Criticism began over the Hindu orthodoxy over practices like widow immolation, monotheism, idolatry and Brahmanical priesthood, etc.
Sambsd Kaumudi was published by Ram Mohan Roy in 1821. The Gujarati newspaper; The Bombay Samachar was also established in the same year. In 1867, the Deoband Seminary was founded which released thousands of fatwas guiding the Muslim readers for conducting themselves in their daily lives and also explained the meanings of various Islamic doctrines.
As reading became popular, it also encouraged the reading of religious scripts and texts. This led these texts to reach a larger circle of people which further opened the possibilities of discussions, debates and controversies within and among different religions as well. Newspapers were involved in conveying information from one place to another and hence creating pan-Indian identities.
Women and Print
The reading practice among Indian women also started increasing especially for the middle-class group. Educational institutes started setting up for women in cities. Some journals started talking about women's education and its importance for them. At the same time, various conservative groups of people believed that a literate girl has a higher chance of getting widowed. Also, few people believed that a woman may get corrupted by reading the Urdu Romances.
Another aspect was also becoming popular when some social reforms and novels started carrying the people’s attention on the life of women and their emotions. In the early nineteenth century, some journals and novels were written and edited by women. These journals gained much popularity and were proven successful in somewhat giving a woman’s perspective to society. The place called The Batla in Bengal was pretty much devoted to the printing and publishing of such books. The books were illustrated with woodcuts and coloured lithographs as well. peddlers found them suitable to take home for the girls or women to read them in their leisure time.
Print and Censorship
The East India company was not concerned about censorship. In 1835 certain regulations were passed by the Calcutta Supreme Court in order to regulate the freedom of the press. The revision of the press laws was agreed upon by Governor-General Bentinck. New rules were formulated by Thomas Macaulay to restore the earlier freedom of the press. Later on, during the 1857 revolt, the freedom of the press was modified again.
Irish press laws were imposed over the Vernacular Press as the Vernacular Press Act providing the Government with extensive rights to censor the editorials and reports by the press. Still, the number of nationalist newspapers kept growing in numbers throughout the country. In 1907, the deportation of Punjab revolutionaries was presented in a sympathetic way by Bal Gangadhar Tilak in his Kesari. This led to the imprisonment of Bal Gangadhar Tilak in 1908.
Did you Know?
The first-ever printing press was developed by Johann Gutenberg 1430s and the first book he printed was the Bible.
The print culture and the modern world are related to each other. The culture of reading established during The Print Revolution drastically improved the literacy rates of the countries by 60-80%.
Conclusion
The concept of printing originated in countries like China, Japan and Korea. However, by this time, the printing method was quite simple. It was done by rubbing the paper by placing it against a hard impression of the content to be printed. Then it evolved to the woodblock method. Later this method came to Europe and increased the demands of the printed materials significantly and hence, the requirement of more advanced technology too. The article is helpful to solve print culture and the modern world question answers.
FAQs on Print Culture and the Modern World
1. How did print culture reach India?
The first printing press brought to India was established in Goa by the Portuguese missionaries in the mid-sixteenth century. In 1579, some Catholic priests printed the first book in Tamil at Cochin. Although the English press came much later in India, the English East India Company started to import the presses from the late seventeenth century.
James Augustus Hickey edited a weekly magazine named the Bengal Gazette. Hickey published advertisements and a lot of gossip about the senior officials of the company in India as well. By the end of the eighteenth century, numerous newspapers and journals appeared in the print industry. This way, the print culture got its place in India.
2. How did print culture affect the reforms and women's education?
As the print technology evolved, the prints got economical and hence, popular. This gave a large number of people access to various sacred texts. It also provided various platforms to the social reformers to express their thoughts over various social domains and also criticise the religious practices that were deemed unfair to them. Also, the access to printed material allowed women in countries like India to receive education, know its importance and become more active in social aspects.
3. How has print culture helped in creating the modern world?
The print culture helped in the development of the ideas and printing those ideas. This led to the printing of the works by the authors and writers and soon the businessmen also started trading of the printed goods to the world. Where at one hand it became a source of income, on the other hand it also developed the reading community. It helped in creating the modern world because it was said to be based on rational thinking rather than religious beliefs.
