Category: Weekly Response

Posted on

Weekly Response #5

The History of Printing and Printing Processes, dives heavily into the dates and years for important momentous occasions in the history of printing human languages into text. The first record of a text being put onto a piece of wood can be seen in China around 800 C.E. The article then describes the first printing press, The Gutenburg Press, emerging in Germany around 1420. This was the first known practice of mass producing a piece of literature, The Bible. The most interesting aspect of this timeline of the are of printing is the heavy industrial influence it had in the 1800’s. Many countries, Germany, France, and Scotland, started producing machinery and steel tools to help print literature at a higher volume. The stereotyping and rotary web-feed letterpress all were momentous steps in the printing world because it exponentially increased the accessibility of literature worldwide.  The first example of a mass produced book was The Bible. This is important to me because the bible was such an influential piece of literature that may have actually sped up the creation of the Gutenburg press.

 

 

Bellis, Mary. “The History of Printing and Printing Processes.” ThoughtCo, Jun. 14, 2018, thoughtco.com/history-of-printing-and-printing-processes-1992329.

Posted on

Jessica Colasacco Week 5 Blog Post

For this weeks blog post, I decided to focus on Elizabeth Eisenstein’s “Defining the Initial Shift.” In this article, she focuses on outlining the major role that print media had on field of written history. She claims, “Unlike the shift from stationer to publisher, the shift from scribe to printer represented a genuine occupational mutation” (Eisenstein 238). For centuries, people used to have to trust the mind of scribes, which would write down what they had heard. While doing my New York Public Library Oral History project, I was able to understand the troubles a scribe might have gone through. They were not able to replay a story multiple times; they had to write down the story as they remembered it. This might have caused multiple problems, especially if the scribe had misunderstood the story.

With the invention of the printing press, writers of history were then able to print their stories for the masses. This allowed writer to write their own stories and reports to actually report what they saw and have it printed for all to see. A very popular example of this is the bible. The stories were always verbally told, but once the printing press became popular, the stories were able to be printed for the masses. Although this is a good thing for the history of writing, it also allows for fake stories to be printed and replicated for others to see.

 

Sources:

Elizabeth Eisenstein. “Defining the Initial Shift: Some Features of Print Culture.” The Book History Reader. eds. David Finkelstein, Alistair McCleery. Routledge, 2006.

Posted on

TingFung, Chu :  The History of Printing and Printing Processes Week 5

Weekly Respond 5 :  “The History of Printing and Printing Processes”

TingFung, Chu

For this weekly response, I choose the article “The History of Printing and Printing Processes” by Bellis, Mary. In her article, she basically introduces the development of printing that our ancestor uses the different methods to record the way of living, such as drawing the picture describes how they eating or drawing the Buddhism picture to pray for the religious purpose. Until  1452, Johannes Gutenberg, a German printer and inventor, was the first person who created printing copy of the Bible on the Gutenberg press. This method he created was the innovate way to apply on the book printing, which remains this method until now. In addition, with this method using develops and expands into different cultures from the Western culture, it can be saying that is actually changing the history of human for the literacy or communication.

Mary’s article actually brings me a question that I had thought before that is does the technology hurting the conventional printing manufacturer? Newspaper, for example, I believe now most people receive the news is via the social media on their smartphone because it is convenient to read the news as you turn on the notification to view the traffic news or breaking news.  That means people wouldn’t have a chance to read the conventional text like newspaper, or magazines these types of reading journal.  With the people’s demands are decreasing for conventional newspaper, which directly affects the printing manufacturer the business running, might end up being replaced by the technology, just as the telegraph was replaced by the first generation cellphone with the calling function, after it was developed into a new model cell phone with the blue tooth sending function until the existence of smartphone. In short, I assume the conventional newspaper will be replaced just as the matter of the time.

Source: Bellis, Mary. “The History of Printing and Printing Processes.” ThoughtCo, Jun. 14, 2018, thoughtco.com/history-of-printing-and-printing-processes-1992329.

Posted on

Marisa Brincat Post for 9/24

”Yet if data are somehow subject to us, we are also subject to data, because Google collects so much information on users’ interests and behaviors, for instance, and the U.S National Security Agency mines fiber-optic transmissions for clues about terrorists.” (Gitelman, 2)

This quote stood out to me because there has been so much controversy surrounding the topic of companies like Google and Facebook aquiring information about their users and most users have no idea that their information is being recorded. I think its great that we have the U.S National Security Agency that can help target terrorists over the internet, however, I find it a little alarming that Facebook and Google can aquire a ton of information about you and use it to their advantage. As I had shared in class, I am starting an e-commerce clothing company and before I was able to move forward with all of the fun and exciting stuff that goes into starting a clothing company, I had to establish my Code of Ethics. A Code of Ethics basically tells the customer of what we plan on doing with their personal information, such as their credit card number, their interests, etc. A big part of my company is to not sell a person’s personal information to other companies for third party soliciting. I find it crazy that yes, data is subject to us, but the fact that we are subject to data and that people can form a paper trail of all the things that we may be interested in as well as our behaviors.

 

Sources: Plantin, Jean-Christophe. “« Raw Data » Is an Oxymoron Lisa Gitelman (Dir.), Cambridge, MIT Press, 2013.” Communication & Langages, vol. 2013, no. 177, 2013, pp. 155–156.

Posted on

Brieya Walker 9/24/2018 WEEK 5 Elizabeth Einstein, Defining the Initial Shift

For this blog post I decided to reflect on Elizabeth Einstein’s Defining the Initial Shift. In this reading she discusses the shift from scribal culture to printing culture. She also explained how the printing press gave access to more books, created an easier spread of information, and how learning was assisted with reading. I learned about the birth of printing in previous history classes and remembered that the birth of printing sparked revolutions as well. This reading made me think of the connection it has to our class which has to do with how the world went from orality to literacy. In addition, it just made me think of how far we’ve come with technology. We can print out any paper as many times as we want by only pressing a button, we can make as many copies as we want, and even have the option to print out our papers in black and white or color. It’s honestly even shocking to read how hard it was for some people to make a profit off of printing when now there are companies who make profit off of just ink alone, printers, and paper. For example, there are places like Staples who sell the necessary supplies to make it all happen.

 

 

Eisenstein, E. (2005). Defining the Initial Shift. In The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (pp. 13-45). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511819230.005

Posted on

Milagros’ Blog Post for 9/24

This week I decided to reflect on Homi K. Bhabha’s “Signs Taken for Wonder” because at first I was very confused about what was the purpose of this reading but as I did some research and kept reading, I finally figured out how this connects to the class. “The discovery of the book is, at once, a moment of originality and authority, as well as a process of displacement that..” ( Bhabha,144)  this quote really stuck out to me because this explains what happened with colonizers and communication in one sentence to me. Once the colonizers started to use the Bible to set the standards, this is how communication started to change to how they wanted it to be. When we learn in school about how the colonizers took over everything, we hear that these native people were wild and uncivilized but in reality, what if they weren’t uncivilized at all? It just goes back to the Batiste reading of indigenous people and this reading goes in depth of how one certain book which is the Bible was used to communicate to people and was used to establish a new way of communicating by telling people that this was the only way and the right way. The quote states “process of displacement” and means that this is how they got their way and displaced the native’s way. The discovery of the Bible put everyone on the same page which was another way of communicating to them in a way that the colonizers thought to be effective.

 

Work Cited

-Bhabha, Homi, Signs Taken for Wonders: Questions of Ambivalence and Authority under a Tree outside Delhi, 1817

Posted on

Abby Potashnik- Blog Response #4

For my response this week I chose Elizabeth Eisenstein’s “Defining The Initial Shift”. Einstein argues that historians don’t truly understand the significant impact the printing press had on the world at the time of its creation and beginning stages pf production. She argues that had it not been for the printing press, concepts, theories, knowledge, and information wouldn’t have been as rapidly known or available, if hand written manuscripts had been the only option. The printing press transformed the way the world worked, and further continued its’ progression. Eisenstein discusses the significance quantity and quality had regarding production. In terms quantity, for a while folks believed that only the wise, and people worthy of divine intelligence received wisdom, and therefore the manuscripts with that, there were very few “wise” people after all, for the rest didn’t have divine intervention. Regarding quality, the amount that was able to be transformed and not studied and educated was unbelievably amazing. I really enjoyed reading this passage from a historical perspective,  because it really showcased, and  highlighted the importance of the printing press, and how much it has helped and further progressed industrial, educational, religious, and cultural views to name a few. It’s our job as humans to try and better technology to us, and make it something to better out futures, whilst not losing the people we’ve become and who we plan to be.

 

Posted on

Michael Farias blog post 4 for September 25

For this blog report I chose “The Signs of Wonder” by Homi Bhabha. What I found interesting about this article was how communication was connected to English colonization. There is a book that Bhabba talks about throughout the writing that talks about things such as he right way to act. This book has to be the Bible. The Europeans who were colonizers were known to spread (force it on the people) Christianity wherever they went. They forced people in places like India and the Americas to practice Christianity. This book (the Bible) would be used for turning “wild” or uncivilized people into to civilized people. The Europeans believed that anyone who wasn’t Christian was uncivilized. I found it interesting that the Bible was a way of communicating to others if they were civilized or not based on if they follow what it says.

Posted on

Carolyn Pena Blog Post Week #4

In Elizabeth Eisenstein book “Defining the Initial Shift” on page 233, she wrote, ” Many-valued texts were barely preserved from extinction; untold numbers failed to survive.” When I read this, it made me think of history books because of the old historical texts that we are taught. Although as you get older you realize that a lot of information is missing in these textbooks and we learn about past history more from oral communication. One major example is just simply the founding of America. You can ask children the question “Who found America?” in which they will tell you “Christopher Columbus” because that’s what it tells you in history textbooks. My whole life until high school I was taught exactly this and then I learned the truth about history and found out that none of it was in textbooks. If this is the case with a lot of the history, why aren’t textbooks rewritten? What is the value of these texts and the value of oral communication? This also makes me think about our future and how what we went through is going to be translated into the future and what is going to be important enough to be taught in the future. I just find it amazing because I don’t really know what I value more, what is shown to me via text or what is verbally told to me and why?

Elizabeth Eisenstein. “Defining the Initial Shift: Some Features of Print Culture.” The Book History Reader. eds. David Finkelstein, Alistair McCleery. Routledge, 2006.

Posted on

Clary Capellan, 9/21, Week #5

This week Homi K. Bhabha’s “Signs Taken for Wonders” stood out to me the most. This reading made it apparent how communication ties into colonization, as communication is used as a tool for colonization. One of the quotes that stood out to me was “The discovery of the book installs the sign of appropriate representation: the word of God, truth, art creates the conditions for a beginning, a practice of history and narrative. But the institution of the Word in the wilds is also an Entstellung, a process of displacement, distortion, dislocation, repetition4-the dazzling light of literature sheds only areas of darkness. Still the idea of the English book is presented as universally adequate: like the “metaphoric writing of the West,” it communicates “the immediate vision of the thing, freed from the discourse that accompanied it, or even encumbered it” (Bhabha 147). It is apparent that “The book” that is being referred to was the Bible. Although it has such a righteous significance in the western culture. It also represents a sort of darkness and oppression when enforced in the “wilds”. Correct me if I’m wrong but to my understanding the wilds refers to the “uncivilized” or nonconforming countries to the western ideals. In the guise of this civilizing mission so to speak, the Europeans stripped the colonized nations of everything, taking away their culture, beliefs, religion, lifestyle, etc and imposing their own. However, even though the bible was used for this atrocious purpose it is still “universally adequate: like the metaphoric writing of the West”.

 

Refrences:

Bhabha, Homi, Signs Taken for Wonders: Questions of Ambivalence and Authority under a Tree outside Delhi, 1817