Welcome dear participants.we would be discussing the interconnections between culture, media and literature.The beginnings of media can be traced to human temperament to communicate with each other,to pass on our messages, so that we feel connected and a part of a society.Even today we find that this basic impulse lies behind our efforts to keep on updating our media presence as well as the different mediums which we use.The content and medium of transmission are also interconnected as we will see later on and we find that for a particular type of communication, we today are using different forms of media. Media is basically used to pass on information and knowledge also among the people; it also helps us to coordinate some type of a public debate for important issues. And therefore it can also work as a watchdog for government for business and for other major institutions which govern human society. At the same time we find that media helps us to seek certain entertainment. When the print media is started, it gave a platform to human imagination, it also allowed us to participate in the fantasy world, so the basic aspect of imagination and entertainment in terms of media participation is there. At the same time, we find that media has always been intensely present in human culture. In the late 20th century, we normally classify mass media into eight industries and they are books, magazines, movies, newspapers, radio, recordings, television, and the Internet. The advent of digital technology towards the end of the 20th century and particularly its development in the 21st century have changed the shape of media, the way it talks to people and the way people can also participate in it. It has changed the face of human culture in a way. But at the same time, we find that the advent of digital communication technology has created new questions for us to find answers too. How do we define mass media in this context and whether we should also incorporate the cell phones, the computer games, the video games in our definition of media or literature etc. So, we find that as culture develops, media also takes new shapes. We can also put it like this that as media develops culture also takes a new shapes. The cultural impact of different types of media can also be seen in different stages of the development of human civilisation and culture. When the books and newspapers, templates, periodicals etc., started and they took a very coherent shape right in the beginning of the 15th century. So we find that they generated a public which could read and therefore which could also hope to transcend the limitations of their social class. When the recordings started we find that with the help of gramophone records, magnetic tapes, cassettes and CDs particularly from the late 19th century, the way of participation changed. It changed the habits, we seek entertainment. It also change the habits in which we keep records particularly of our near and dear ones. When the cinema as an entertainment media began in and around 1900, it also changed the force of the industry in many ways. It changed the habit of participation, it change the habit of entertainment also. It also change the way the business works. The same things can be said about the advent of radio around 1910 and television from about 1950. Most of the media debates in the beginning of the 20th century and also towards the middle of the 20th century are based on how the common people are responding to these media advantages in terms of print, radio and television. We find that around 1990s, Internet came and mobile phones started around 2000. These two technological breakthroughs also change the shape in which people started using media as a participative medium. And it also had an indelible impact on the way we respond to our cultural issues. So in the course of our lecture we would look at how exactly a medium has developed, what has been the response of the people to the concerned technology, how a particular medium based on a particular technological development has changed the shape of our culture and how do these two things interact with each other continuously. If you look at the evolution of the print media, we find that mankind has always been attracted towards the written word, the origins of the books can be traced to the ancient Egyptians and the written scripts and the records of it could be traced around 3000 BCE in the western culture. At that time, we find that different materials were used for the purpose of writing, sometimes they used metal or clay tablets are the stones and even bones to carve the material on. Later on, we find that the Egyptians were able to develop papyrus which was made of certain reeds found in that region and it was considered to be an ideal material for writing purposes and individual sheets of papyrus were later on sewn together to make scrolls. They were lightweight and they were also portable and therefore they became immediately popular. So we find that by the time it was 6th century BCE Papyrus was used widely throughout the Mediterranean regions, it was also used by the Greeks and Romans and also it was used by the common people for record keeping purposes. One of the earliest records of a business report is found from the fifth century BC which is a record of a ship captain written back to the owner of the ship about the passage of the goods safely from a particular port to another. So, we find that by the time it was 6th century BCE, the written word on a somewhat relatively permanent piece of papyrus was already a part of human civilisation and culture.
Many ancient civilisations housed their scrolls in large libraries which soon became repositories of knowledge and displays of political and economic power. In the year 377, it is said that Rome alone had 28 libraries. Later on we find that there was a simultaneous use of parchment which was made from treated animal skins to create a malleable and even writing surfaces.It had certain advantages over papyrus because it was more durable and also it could be developed locally and people were not dependent on a particular region for its import. So between the second and fourth century we find that Romans started stitching pieces of papyrus of parchment together and bound them between wooden covers. This form was called the ‘codex’ and it is very similar to today's books.The form which was developed in the shape of a codex was reader friendly, it was convenient to hold to read easier to store and handle and it was also less expensive and it also gave a certain opportunity to the readers to flip through different sections. The scrolls also continued and they became the dominant form for secular texts for several centuries. Codex was favoured from early Christian text and by the 6th century CE, we find that they almost replaced the scrolls.
The next major innovation towards the development of media as we understand it today is in the shape of block printing on a piece of paper, it began in the Tang Dynasty China around 700 C and in the excavated tombs of the former Han Dynasty. The records of certain texts are still found and these texts are retained on silk cloth and the text is supposed to belong to Lao-tzu, the famous sixth century Chinese philosopher.
The earliest example of the printed book is found in the form of a Buddhist text. The title of this Buddhist text is The Diamond Sutra. It has been printed on a piece of cloth with the help of a block printing and the language which has been used for block printing is in Sanskrit script. The woodblock printing that is the process of carving a page of text onto a wooden block then inking and pressing it onto a page to create a text was popular and this medium arrived in Europe after about 800 years. In medieval Europe we find the culture of using scribe was very much prevalent. Manuscripts were copied by hand, so we can say that no two books were alike, the content was copied but still it had certain differences because of the handwriting and the material which was used. In the medieval ages we find that media did not have any democratic presence. It was only the monasteries who were the centre of knowledge and wisdom, monks were trained to prepare copies of sacred books. They used to embellish these texts and conserve them, they used to prepare not only the sacred text but also the secular texts were also normally prepared by the monks only. These were the hand illustrated copies of texts illuminated, ornated and embellished and these were highly valued because they were very scarce and it took several months to prepare a copy and therefore in families, they were passed on as year looms and they were considered to be very costly assets. However, we find that the process of bookmaking became less expensive after the emergence of paper and after it became cheaply available.
The papermaking technique is started in China, it reached the Islamic world in the eighth century and from there we find that it travelled to Europe. By the time it was 12th century, we find that the paper was easily available and printing of books, that handmade copies of books on pieces of paper was a very common affair. It is said that in the 20th century, one of the old cities of Moracco, Marrakesh had a 100 booksellers.
So on the basis of that we can make out the popularity of books, the popularity of literature, the popularity of some types of media and its attraction towards the people.
Gutenberg’s invention of mechanically movable type created a revolutionary change in human history. We find that its impact is such a significant one that perhaps it is very hard to define it exactly. We can say that it was around the 14th century that the manufacturing of paper is started in Europe and paper manufacturing coincided with the invasion of the first printing press by Joannes Gutenberg in 1448. It was a simple act of fashioning small movable letters which had a dramatic effect on the history of books and thus on the history of our culture and civilisation. It started the revolution of the print culture. The printing press pooled the existing technologies such as the screw press which was already used for paper making with the innovations of Gutenberg, he had used individual metal letters and punctuation marks that could be freely reshuffled.
Gutenberg had printed the Bible in 1455 in Germany which is commonly known as the Gutenberg Bible. It bought instant fame and ushered the way for the commercial mass production of books. Before printing press, books were commissioned to an individual who could copy them and therefore, it was also costly and at the same time, they also took a lot of time. Printing technology and also the simultaneous emergence and production of paper in Europe made the production of book cheaper and swifter also.
And therefore, we find that there was a dramatic increase in the production and dissemination of books which were cheap, which were standardised and which were also identical. Because when the books were copied by hand, we find that they could not be identical but these printed books were identical and therefore, they fascinated the imagination of contemporary mankind, By the time it was the end of the 15th century, we find that the printing press, the medium of books was already responsible for ushering in the trends of Renaissance, Enlightenment and humanist traditions in Europe. Printing shops had sprung up by the end of the 15th century throughout Europe and we find that the education was no more limited to monasteries. University is gradually became the new centre where books could be read and evaluated. So, we find that a technological innovation is responsible for introducing revolutionary changes in media and thereby affecting fundamental shifts in the habits of human being affecting the cultural changes forever. So, very soon we find that printing of books took a shape of a business venture. There was a boom in production and sales of books. And the growth of international trade and sea voyages also allow books to have a wider
reach. They also revolutionised the production and dissemination of knowledge and information and also democratised it. It was not limited only to the higher gentry, the elite people, the monks only but the cheap availability and easy availability of books also made it possible for the common man to access them, to read them and to be benefited by them. The easy and cheap availability of books fuelled the Renaissance and the humanist tradition. The classical Greek and Roman texts became easily available and because the printed text had a wider reach, people could read them and therefore the availability of books fuelled the desire for knowledge amongst the middle classes who also viewed it as an opportunity to move ahead in the social ladder.
The wide circulation of texts went hand in hand with the dispersal of political, intellectual, religious and cultural ideas. And very soon we find that people started using the same books and they were being exposed to the same ideas. Among other things it revolutionised the idea and the study of sciences. Because with the help of the books, scientist could prepare a permanent record of their scientific investigations and theories. And therefore, the medieval mind started grasping them easily. The availability of books outside of monasteries and also outside of universities as it had already become a business venture gave rise to literacy amongst the middle classes men and also in a very limited manner women. So it was no longer a bastion of the rich and the elite people or the religious hierarchies. The mass production of books democratised knowledge and therefore we find that it soon also became a method of creating some type of resistance and which was also being curbed by the Church.The democratisation of knowledge with the easy availability of books also resulted into some type of changes in the attitudes of the Church; the Roman Catholic Church, which was the dominant institution in contemporary Europe. So that process of democratisation of books faced a lot of resistance from the Church, they spread of dissenting ideas, protestant, the secular and humanist thought is also often credited to the availability of the books. So, the Church felt that its control over the people is slipping and therefore, the Roman Catholic Church started to ostracise in its own ways the publication and the popularity of books. Books were censured and screened by the church authorities before it was permitted to print them. They also banned the printing of the Bible in vernacular languages and they suggested that the Bible should only be printed in Latin.
Because Latin could still be understood by the elite clerical and scholastic circles
only, the common people could not decipher Latin. So the Church is still attempted to keep knowledge away from the people but the revolutionary changes had already started, they had seeped into the cultural habits of the people and therefore we find that this process only continued. With the help of the popularity of books, we find that Martin Luther was able to initiate the Protestant Reformation in 1517. Challenging the authority of the Church by claiming that all people had the right to read and interpret the Bible in their own languages, that the interpretation of this sacred text should not be limited only to the ecclesiastical circles. The Church feared that the dissemination of vernacular Bibles would somehow loosen the control of the church over the way the text could be interpreted. And therefore, it could lessen the control of the church over the minds of the people and therefore it tried to resist it. However, the attempts to control the printing industry were not very successful because of two reasons; firstly, the economic reason because there was a demand for these books in the market and people wanted to adopt it as a successful business venture. Secondly, the cultural habits of the people had already been changed because of the free availability of the print medium with the help of books and different tracts. So, we find that the printing technology gradually change the mind-set of the people made books available to the people and therefore it also resulted in the growth of vernacular literature. When it was possible to print the Bible as well as other text in vernacular languages, we find that the literacy rate grew. The trends of Renaissance Europe also fuelled the growth of texts which were being published in the vernacular medium. The early example of the text which became immediately popular and which were basically written and printed in vernacular languages are Dante’s Divine Comedy and Chaucer’s Canterbury tales, these books fuel the imagination of the contemporary people and became immediately
popular. So, we find that poetry as well as the place became very popular and wide spread among the people, and by the time, we reach the 16th and 17th century in European history, in expensive chapbooks had become very popular. Chapbooks which were a combination of the small and cheap included popular ballads, humorous stories or religious tracts, so even those people who could not read detailed texts were able to read these chapbooks. And therefore, they gradually initiated a revolution in the habits of the people, people started to read and therefore the habits were changed.
More than that books were no longer considered to be sacred objects, they were not limited either to the gentry or to the church but they were available for all kinds of readers. These cultural changes and shifts can be seen in the United Kingdom's public libraries act of 1850 which permitted local boroughs to established libraries and for the establishment of these libraries, we find that people liberally donated. So the development of free public lending libraries revolutionised the tastes of the people, they were drawn towards books not only it entertain them but also it provided
them a glimpse of a world which was still now forbidden to them. So, we find that after the American Civil War, public libraries flourished in the newly reunified United States. And soon they became universal phenomena, at the same time we find that the issues related with copyright as well as certain rules and regulations which try to curb the publishing industry also came into existence. The printing press change the function of the author and we find that the picture of a commercial author, the figure of a commercial author could become a possibility. Prior to the advent of the printing press, prior to this time when the books, the medium of print became commonly available, books were only a collaborative efforts, they were commissioned, they were already there and they had to be copied. It was a time taking an expensive affair. But when the mechanical reproduction of books became easy and cheap and quick, the authors could be benefited from the publication of their books if they were sold widely and the
people appreciated them. So very soon we find that copyright laws were being made to guard authors from censorship and to allow them certain profit for their own work and the first copyright law was England's a statue of Queen Anne in 1710. In the 20th century, we find that American copyright law is steadily increase the terms of protection and the scope of copyright in the favour of the author. So, the publishing industry helped authors to produce and distribute copies of their work easily and early printers also acted as wholesale booksellers and publishers. They often as any other businessman does, they often impinge upon the rights of the authors in the 20th century. The technological advances in the 19th century, the machine made paper and then the Linotype typesetting machine also made publishing still more simpler and lucrative. Paperback books revitalised the publishing industry by making high and classical literature accessible in portable and inexpensive format. By the turn of the century we find that the book publishing was already a major industry and was controlled in Europe by six major publishing houses. Along with the development of the books, the technology of print also made a newspaper daily possibility for us. Though the newspapers were also started during the Roman time and the earliest record of a newspaper is found to be in the year 59 BCE, the name of this newspaper was Acta Diurna or daily doings and it was started by Julius Caesar. The paper was written on papyrus on a daily basis. With the help of a scrolls, it was sent to the remote corners of the Roman Empire. It is believed to have published chronicles of events, assemblies, births and deaths and daily gossips etc. In 1566, another progenitor of the modern newspaper appeared in Venice and it was known as a avisi or gazettes, they were handwritten and they focused on politics and military conflicts also. Absence of printing press in the early European civilisation limited the circulation of these newspapers.
But with the advent of the printing press, we find that along with independently authored book the journalism itself was started as a major trend. So we find that the impact of Gutenberg's printing press also revolutionised the scope and reach of the newspaper and it paved the way for modern day journalism. The first weekly newspapers arrived in 1609; they were published in different cities of Germany though the name of the cities was never printed to avoid the government persecution. But soon this idea became very popular, there were two popular formats in contemporary Europe, the first one was the Dutch style corantos which was a densely packed 2 to 4 page newspaper, the other style which was popular was the German style pamphlet which had 8 to 24 pages in it, so the newspapers followed either of these two methods of publications. They also however avoided the printing of local news and political events because of the fear of censorship and in the second half of 17th century in England, we find that newspapers were freed from government control and people started to understand the power of free press. We can also link various social and cultural events also certain political events like Magna Carta which added to this idea of freedom of expression. But let us say that the technology, the contemporary society and contemporary cultural norms also somehow made a climate possible in which people could use the medium of communication easily. The changing climates led to frequent publications of newspapers and soon we find that by weekly publications also started to come out which incorporated not only the news but also the advertisements and reports. These changes also revolutionised the role of journalist. Instead of becoming only passive observers and writing exactly what it happened they started to become active players in the analysis of trade, politics and commerce. Daily publications began due to the increasing popularity and profitability of the newspapers.
In 1650 we find that a newspaper was started in Leipzig, Germany which is still continuing. In 1702 in London a newspaper with the title of Daily Courant was started.
These daily publications liberally used headlines and illustrations to attract the people and soon became a part of the daily habit at least of the elite and the rich sections of the people. By 1800, they were rather expensive to print, they were priced at six cents a copy and therefore artisans and other working class citizen found it difficult to purchase it. So though the newspapers were becoming very popular, the circulation and the readership was limited to the rich and the elite sections of the society. This situation was changed by the advent of the Penny Press in 1833, when Benjamin Day created the Penny Press by starting a newspaper, The Sun. It was printed on a small letter sized pages and this newspaper caused just a penny. It also used a new type of printing press, it printed approximately 18,000 copies per hour because of its cost and because of the use of the new type of printing press, it soon reached a much wider readership.
And primarily, it became popular among the working classes, among those people who were not economically well off. The content was also slightly different and it published stories that would appeal to the new consumers. They incorporated human interest stories, police reports, murders, the sensational and scandalous news, advertisements and therefore it became a huge success immediately, reaching the circulation of 15,000 copies per day. Whereas, previously the most popular paper New York City Courier and Enquirer could sell not more than 4500 copies per day. Soon, we find that newer types of journalistic styles were beginning. In the late 1800s, New York world publisher, Joseph Pulitzer developed a new journalistic style which relied heavily on sensationalism. Pulitzer pioneered the use of advertisements as news, focused stories on crime, violence, emotion and sex. He also expanded focus on the female readership and we can say that the sensationalist style served as a forerunner of today's tabloids.
The investigative journalism was the dominant mode of this type of a writing and writers
and editors were allowed to take liberties to sell more and more copies of the paper. So, Penny Press and yellow journalism can be considered as the forefathers of the contemporary tabloids. They were opposed to the broadsheets; broadsheets is a word which we used to refer to a particular format of newspaper, it normally publishes serious matters of domestic and international importance with an in-depth analysis and the scrutiny of various types of cultural and political debates. At the same time, we find that in media, breakthrough was seen in the form of the wire services also. Samuel Morse invented the telegraph and uses the telegraph companies to receive up to date
news reports from cities across the globe. So, we find that in 1846, Associated Press was set up as a cooperative arrangement of five newspapers to offset the expense of using this telegraph service. It led to reliable and also immediate reportage. And we find that immediacy in the newspaper world is still very much a coin which can be used; it increased the scope as well as the appeal of the subject matter and made the newspaper popular in all sections of the society, the upper classes, the middle classes as well as the working classes people. The popularity of the printed word in the form of sacred texts, in the form of newspapers started a new trend of magazines. Publishers began to think about the magazines after the printing press became dominant in Europe, and there were cultural shifts in the taste of the people. Magazines started to appear as early as the 17th century Europe in the form of brochures, pamphlets and almanacs. And these pamphlets, brochures and almanacs were the routine property of the middle classes. The irregular publication of magazines however was costly and required more effort and therefore publishers wanted to create a readership which is regular and therefore they wanted also to create magazines so that they could cater to the specific interest of their regular readers.Early magazines occupied a middling position between newspapers and pleasure reading.The first recorded version of a magazine is said to be published by Johann Rist, somewhere between 1663-68. Rist was a theologian and poet in Hamburg Germany and he published the first magazine with the name of Edifying Monthly Discussions. This magazine inspired the publication of many journals and we find that in 17 31 in London, a regular magazine with the title of the Gentleman's Magazine's was started. Soon other magazines followed, they often contain news, short stories and poetries, they combined news and pleasurable reading and therefore, they immediately became very popular, because they never became redundant and people could go back to them for amusement repeatedly. The lighter magazines also incorporated entertainment and enjoyment and as well as they balanced it with intellectual publications such as treatises, information and education based articles. By the time it was 18th century, we find that the literacy rates in Europe had already increased very much. There was also an increase in female readership though is still it was not as prevalent as it was among the males. It also impacted the literary world and we find that female writers begin publishing not only for women readers but also for the male readers. We also find various instances when female writers used pseudonyms and became popular with the name, with the pen name of a man. Magazines also flourished as the growing readership among women sought out both knowledge and entertainment and we find that it was in 1693 that a magazine started being published twice weekly especially targeting the women, the name was the Athenian Mercury. Soon, we find that this trend became popular in Britain, in the early 18th century three influential magazines started publishing simultaneously; The Review by Daniel Defoe, The Tatler by Richard Steele and The Spectator by Joseph Addison and Steele. So we find that these three magazines published articles on domestic and foreign affairs as well as certain individual opinions. The Spectator soon replaced The Tatler which published between 1709 to 1711. Tatler and Spectator emphasised living and culture and used humour a lot and they became also popular among the people, they also attracted the female readership. So, we find that during the 1830s, the printing and mailing publications had become very popular. The general people was attracted towards them and it also became because of the low cost and because of its popularity, a viable business option. So the production of cheap magazines was done to cater to a large a