Meanland extract: The democratisation of publishing (and a bit of Clay Shirky for good measure)
Jacinda Woodhead
July 29
Print publishing also creates extrinsic value, as an indicator of quality. A book’s physical presence says “Someone thought this was worth risking money on.” – Clay Shirky, Weblogs and the Mass Amateurization of Publishing
The competitive landscape doesn’t include silence on the part of the amateurs. And it will never include silence on the part of amateurs again. – Clay Shirky again
Something Jessica Au quoted in her Gutenberg post really struck me: ‘The personal computer was closer to a Gutenberg moment than the printing press ever was.’
Indisputably, the Gutenberg press revolutionised the ‘way we read and publish’. The printing press is deemed the most influential invention, up until the last few decades at least, heralding modernity, and conferring the ability to distribute ideas and the written word beyond immediate communities.
Here was this invention that initially allowed for the printing of bibles, but then exhausted bible demand. Since I’ve already donned my Clay Shirky-tinted glasses, I’ll allow him to explain:
The idea that the printing press democratised reading, writing and ideas is widely embraced. This is not to suggest it was – or remains in its internet incarnation – politically progressive or, indeed, revolutionary. Matthew Battles reminds us:
The printing press never only produced the kind of deep reading we admire and privilege today. It also produced propaganda and misinformation, penny dreadfuls and comic books offensive to public morality, pornography, self-help books, and much that was generally despised and rejected by polite culture. Any account of the history of “The Gutenberg Era” that lacks these is incomplete — just as any picture of the Internet that privileges LOLcats and 4chan is insufficient. We must consider both — for pornography, misinformation, and sheer foolishness have thrived from the age of incunables to the advent of the Internet.
Read the rest of this post over at Meanland.
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