Post #11 Final Paper Proposal
After a lot of consideration, I have changed my original plan from focusing on revisions that need to be made in all the nodes of Darton’s circuit in relation to digitalized books and e-readers, to the few that I feel are affected the most and require the heaviest revision. I have also changed how I am going to approach e-readers and digitalized books in my paper. At first I grouped them together as the same thing, but after I received feedback, I decided to explain the difference between digitalized books and e-readers and how they both affect Darton’s Circuit of Communication in different ways. I decided to still talk about both e-readers and digitalized books rather than one or the other because when I was doing research I found a lot of good information that connects the two things, while still showing their differences in how they affect Darton’s Circuit. I felt that digitalized books and e-readers go together, so I would like to discuss them both in my paper. Since I want to cover both things, I picked a plain of interest that seemed specific enough to make an original argument while still including both e-readers and digitalized books. The thesis that I came up with is shown below.
Thesis: The split of the physical, printed book, into the two entities of digitalized books and e-readers, has caused a need for a massive revision within the printing, binding, supplying, and shipping nodes of Darton’s Circuit of Communication since the original communication circuit is no longer all-inclusive of the reading materials that readers have in their possession, now that digitalized books are in the picture. Digitalized books are what affect Darton’s Circuit directly, while e-readers affect Darton’s Circuit of Communication indirectly through the utilization of digitalized books.
Within my paper I am going to discuss the nodes of the printers, binders, suppliers, and shippers individually. While discussing each node, I am going to focus on how the node functions without revisions, and how the node needs to be in order to function according to the changes that are caused directly by e-books, and indirectly by e-readers. I will also discuss any advantages that come from these revisions, such as cost and time reductions and an increase in overall convenience.In my paper I would also like to focus on the original function of the physical book, and how the same function is being fulfilled through digitalized books and e-readers, but more efficiently with the revisions that are yet to be made in Darton’s circuit. The revisions that I will discuss in Darton’s Circuit involve the combining of some of the nodes to the eliminating of a node. For example, since digitalized books are digital, they do not need to be shipped because transportation of the books is fulfilled by the role of the reader as they download the books onto their digital devices.
Annotated Bibliography
Carmody, Tim. “10 Reading Revolutions Before E-Books.” The Atlantic (2010) n.pag. Web. 1 Dec 2010.
This article is a historical overview of reading revolutions prior to the invention of digital books and e-readers. I am interested in implementing some of the historical facts on the traditional book in my paper because one of my focuses is on the function of the physical book before the content was split from the physical aspect of the book.
Cope, Bill and Diana Kalantzis. Print and Electronic Text Convergence. Australia: University Press, 2001. Print.
Bill Cope and Diana Kalantzis’ book in essence is about the revisions that need to occur in many of the nodes mentioned in Dartons Circuit. The book is not based on Darton’s Circuit but seems like an original version of what the Darton may have come up with if he thought of the his circuit in modern times. This book is useful because it goes through many of the revisions that I had in mind, step by step.
Gordon, Linda et al. “Strategic use of E-Commerce in the Transformation of the Publishing Industry.”
Communications of the IIMA 8.4 (2008): 65-78. Web. 1 Dec 2010.
The focus of this article is on e-commerce, such as digitalized books and e-readers and how they affect the publishing industry. I find this to be useful in my discussion on Darton’s node of publishing since the impact of e-readers and e-books and how they impact the publishing industry is one of my focuses as well.
Siriginidi, Subba Rao. “Electronic books: A review and evaluation.” Library Hi Tech 21.1 (2003): 85-93.
Web. 1 Dec 2010.
This article is entirely about e-books, from their origination to the different types that are now available. It also strongly supports e-books as an alternative to the physical book, which I find to be useful since I am trying to prove in my paper that Darton’s Circuit of Communication needs to be revised because people are choosing e-books over traditional books.
Taylor, David. “E-books and the academic market: the emerging.” Learned Publishing 16 (2003):70-73. Web. 1 Dec 2010.
This article by David Taylor deals with the supply chain that is related to making digitalized books and how it compares with the supply chain that is utilized to make physical books. I find this to be useful in my discussion on the suppliers node of Darton’s Circuit of Communication and the revisions that it needs.
Post #11 More on Darton
I am going to focus on Darton again this week, since I have some thinking to do on how I will revise my argument for the final paper, and I might as well contribute this blog entry to the process of refinement.
My previous idea was to focus on how the newer technologies of digitalized books as well as the means for reading them, such as e-readers, influence need for revision in all of the nodes in Darton’s communication circuit. However, it came up that there is enough of a difference between digitalized books and e-readers that makes them somewhat unrelated in causing revision within Darton’s circuit, unless of course I can find a way to relate them. With this in mind, I will explore in this blog how digitalized books impact Darton’s circuit directly, while e-readers affect Darton’s circuit indirectly though digitalized books.
The physical book, with cover and pages, fulfills two needs. First of all, material is needed to read and the book provides it with the printed words. Second, something is needed to make these words as the needed material tangible, and the book provides this as well with the pages that the words are written on. What happened when digitalized books came onto the scene is the separation of the book as the single entity that fulfills both of these two needs. Respectively, there is still a need for material to read, as there is also still a need for something to physically access the reading material. Instead of both of these needs being met in the single object of the book, they are now split into two things: digitalized books, and the e-reader, or some other sort of digitalized screen. Darton’s circuit of communication is affected by this split because his circuit originally deals with just the book as a single entity, and was not intended to include alterations such as the book being split into two entities of digitalization.
Digitalized books are what affect Darton’s circuit directly, since the essence of the existence of the circuit has to do with the content of the books rather than the form of books, because books with pages simply would not be published if they did not have content. Also, with the original form of the books being taken away, certain nodes of the circuit that have to do with the form of the book are in desperate need of revision.
These nodes that are the most in need of revision due to digitalized books are the binders, the printers, the suppliers, and the shippers. Now that digitalized books, in terms of content, have no need of being bound to something physical, the binding node is basically moot, or would be if physical books didn’t still exist. With digitalized books as the content, and e-readers or computers as the physical aspect, the “binding”, or rather joining of content to the physical aspect is not being done by a binder, but by the purchaser/reader as they download a book onto their e-reader or computer. The same principle applies to the supplier and the printer, since digitalized books are not made up of ink and paper, but rather the supplies are replaced with whatever technology it takes to make something digital. Also, since digitalized books are digital, they do not need to be shipped since transportation of the books is also fulfilled by the role of the reader as they download the books onto their digital devices.
Post #10 Topic Proposal
In a previous blog prompt, we were asked to focus on one aspect of Darton’s communication circuit and how online books have caused a need for revisions in the circuit. I was inspired by this specific prompt for a number of reasons, the first one being my fascination with digitalized books and how they are causing society to move in the direction of everything being digitalized. While writing my response to the prompt, however, I struggled in focusing on only one of the nodes of Darton’s communication circuit and would have liked to include more of them, if not all of them into my response. With Darton’s communication circuit in mind, I would like to give a research- based insight on how the newer technologies of digitalized books as well as the means for reading them influence Darton’s communication circuit. This time, instead of just focusing on one of the things, like just the book binder, or just the readers, I would like to encompass in my paper each of the nodes that are affected by digitalized books. I plan to explain each of the nodes as they have always functioned, and then propose revisions for each one. I’m still not sure exactly what this will require in terms of my voice as a writer, but I am leaning toward an argumentative paper since I will be proposing revisions, thus implying that the original communication circuit is no longer all-inclusive of the reading materials that we as readers have in our possession, now that digitalized books are in the picture. I am also interested in this subject for my final paper because I am curious as to what effect the different forms of e-readers have on the circuit as well. We can now read digitalized books off of our computer screens, i pads, kindles, nooks, as well as the various versions of these things that we can now reach through smart phones, such as iSilo. I want to further explore e-readers as well as digitalized books because I feel that these two things go hand-in-hand when it comes to influencing revisions in Darton’s communication circuit.
Post #9 The Value of Literature
From the time of the invention of the printing press to present, has the utilization of electronic literature decreased the value of the written word, and is the value of literature in the content of the writing, or in the production of the writing? It is common sense that the more time it takes to complete something, the more valuable it is. For example, a hand-made tapestry may cost a large sum of money, while factory-made tapestry purchased in a retail store may cost a fraction of the price of the hand-made one. It is clear that books, both electronic and bound, are not the same thing as a tapestry, but the same idea regarding value can be applied, but should it be? I was intrigued by the introduction of one of the Hayles readings about the history of electronic literature, which brought up the question in my mind regarding the value of someone’s writing by stating “if books could be produced by fast, cheap, and mechanical means, their value as precious artifacts would be compromised”. Now that we print books by fast, cheap, and mechanical means, the answer regarding the value of literature can be reached through a comparison between how writing was produced and used back then, and how we produce literature today and how we use it.
In history, it is conceived that the value of literature may have been drawn from how scribes would toil to copy each word down on a document, and thus the value of that document would come from the time put into it. When print came into the picture, the overall image of a written document changed because it no longer had the connotations of rarity that many would associate with literature, since documents were becoming more available to just anyone. With the aspect of rarity being gone, it is possible that many, specifically those who worked as scribes, no longer considered these new printed documents to be literature at all. However, this mindset could not be true for everyone, since many retrieved the new printed books for the purposes of knowledge and because they valued the content within the books. Those who fit into the category of the later are the ones who have influenced the world of literature as we know of it today. A book as a precious artifact is a dying attraction, while the knowledge within the book, now that this knowledge has been able to expand through print, and now electronic literature, has become what is held as important within society today. Books that were copied by scribes were considered as an important aspect of literature prior to the printing press simply because the knowledge of the time was limited, therefore there weren’t as many books to be copied, and the amount of people available to read the books was also limited because only a few during that time were literate. Basically, if the majority of the population is illiterate, then the literature inside of a book could not be as important to the masses as the mere beauty of the book itself because of all the time that was put into making it that way.
Today, texts are not only accessed electronically, but some are also written electronically. These electronic books, though considered to be an entirely different medium than print, still offer the exact same content that print has to offer. Since the readers of these books have been conditioned over time through the expanding technology of print and the volume that such technologies are able to produce, they no longer associate rarity with value in regards to literature. It may have been a frightening thought once upon a time that if print was to be mass produced, then nonsense would be printed as well, and the value of print would be reduced to ramblings. However, since print is mass produced these days, and even more so with the immediate technology of electronic literature, I would argue that the content of literature is even more valued than it ever has been in the past, because with the rise of mass literature comes the rise in the general education of society. For example, electronic literature offers a wide variety of text, including all the content that print has to offer and then some, such as supplementary sound or animation. Not only does such variety allow for knowledge to expand among society, but it also puts a new stamp of rarity in the form of digital art within electronic literature. Ultimately, I would argue that the utilization of electronic literature has not decreased the value of literature, but has rather changed the value of literature from something that was seen as a precious artifact to something that is an equally precious and unique, source of information for the masses. Literature once was valued because of the time put into it, and this idea still remains to an extent because quality literature must be written, and thus time must be spent. However, the fast and cheap means of current production of literature does not take away from its value because value in modern times is found in content.
Post #8 Revisions for Darton!
I found the Adams/Baker reading to be especially interesting because there is a major change going on in society right now regarding books. The last dramatic change that had to do with books, that I can think of, is the invention of the printing press and how the printing press completely changed the way things worked regarding print. The printing press, in a way, made Darton’s communication circuit even possible, because without it, many of the steps, such as the buyers, borrowers, suppliers and shippers, were hardly even tangible! I liked this reading lot because the next dramatic change regarding books is going on right now, though on somewhat of a smaller scale, and is something that we get to experience rather than read about in history books. This current change in books is different than the previous one inspired by the printing press because it is not a system, such as Darton’s circuit, that is being established, but rather a revision of a system that already exists. Since this is something that we all are experiencing, we all know just how much technology changes society, and how technology, specifically e-books via amazon.com, are changing Darton’s communication circuit. Take a look:
In “Elizabeth Eisenstein’s The Printing Press as an Agent of Change Its thesis -that large movements, the ‘Renaissance’ or the ‘Reformation’, were not so much influences on the press as products of it” (Adams Baker 47). From this we see that society is in fact the way it is due to specific innovations. In this case, the printing press was not a result of the renaissance or the reformation, but rather these eras were a result of the printing press. In the same way, current technology such as the invention of e-books, which are accessed by e-book readers like the Nook or the Kindle, is shaping society today to be the way that we currently know it. For example, e-books directly change the process that a printed book would go through, which changes the methodology that a society uses in order to acquire a book. E-books are a factor that very much affect Darton’s communication circuit since these books are digital and entirely skip some of the processes that are portrayed in Darton’s circuit, but right now I will focus on how this technology coupled with Amazon.com affects the sphere of the readers, and the interaction between readers and authors with e-books in mind.
First of all, physical books still exist and always will so readers will always have the option of going to a library and borrowing a book. However, the existence digital books have created a fork in the road by providing two options to buyers: buying a printed book, or buying an e-book online. Because this second option is now available, a revision is necessary in Darton’s circuit of communication, because not everybody will go to a bookstore to buy the new latest text. The internet needs to be taken into account because only some of the buyers will buy the physical text while others will buy the digital version directly from amazon.com.On the other hand, libraries are slowly becoming obsolete due to current technology, but nevertheless they will always have current copies of books being shipped to them because some people do not belong in the purchasing category, but in the borrowing category. E-books are not something that can be found in a library, as they are strictly purchased online, and therefore take many purchasers who were also a part of the borrowing category, out of the borrowing category. What could this mean? It is hard to say how this will affect the future of print, but maybe less printed copies will be produced while more people shift over to online sellers in order to get the digital version.
There is also the interaction between authors and readers to consider when taking the internet and e-books into account because the internet provides a way for authors who have books that were not accepted by publishers to get their books to readers, by offering them online in unofficial catalogs in PDF or e-book format. This is very interesting, because the interaction here creates a little circle in the communication circuit that completely leaves out publishers! Things are definitely changing that require revisions to be made in Darton’s circuit of communication, in so many ways. It was hard to pick just one thing to focus on!
Post #7 Children, The Alphabet, and Culture
I thought it was very interesting how the child is described as “the medium through which the alphabet permeates the culture”, in the Republic of ABC: Alphabetizing Americans reading. This is definitely true because older generations eventually die off, and are replaced by the younger ones, who will reflect whatever has been put into them at a young age. With this in mind, schools since the birth of our country have jumped onto the idea of using the alphabet as an ordering tool; a device that will sculpt the ideal culture among the children who will eventually be the ones who are to say what is socially acceptable and what isn’t. For example, Christian ideals were taught throughout schools via the alphabet in the 1800’s. A would be for Adam, B for Bible, C for Christ, and so on. This practice among American schools has ceased in the early 1900’s until present. In correlation to this, Christian ideals have been far more prominent within American culture in the past. However, since there has been a decline in teaching Christianity in schools with mechanisms such as the alphabet, there has also been a decline in the American culture when it comes to practicing the Christian faith in public. This decline has aided for other things to come into the culture that are now acceptable or nearly acceptable. For example, the definition of marriage in our country and who gets to participate in it. Of course the alphabet cannot be entirely responsible for allowing such dramatic changes in the kairotic environment of our country, but it certainly is tantalizing for the mind to think about.
The fact that children have everything to do with the shaping of culture got me thinking about how if one little thing, such as the way we teach the alphabet, was to change, then how long would we have to wait for this to create a domino effect on our culture? I think the alphabet can be used not only to influence what we religiously believe in, but it can also inflict a certain political view on children in exactly the same way. Right now the United States is a democracy, and we have legal documents such as the constitution that will ensure that our country stays a democracy. However, if we ignore this fact for a moment to explore what the effects of a, say, communist alphabet would be, then who knows what might be the political situation in 100 years! So with our current laws set aside, I think if the alphabet looked something like… A is for Allocate, B is for Ban, C is for Censorship, D is for Doing as you’re told … and so on, then the children’s culture would eventually be vastly different than the culture of the older generations. Of course this wouldn’t directly or immediately take effect, but a continuous teaching the alphabet with a Marxist view, just as an example, would definitely plant some sort of seed in the psyche of the children that would ultimately reflect in the future culture of the country. This idea of using children as the medium to replicate culture is also mused upon in the Crane reading as it specifically tells us that “Lancaster schools could turn out product”. He basically replicated the same exact thing in relation to culture in each child by treating them like blank pages that could be filled, or like robots. The reading goes on to tell us how the children in these schools mechanically completed tasks, which reminded me of what a computer does at each click of the mouse. The computers we use never tell us, “Well I disagree with you clicking that mouse because it goes against what I believe in”. In the same way, today we are taught to stand up for what we believe in, because we are all infused with a different aspects of different cultures or beliefs. Lancaster’s schools did the opposite with children, since they all were taught to believe in the exact same thing and carry out tasks in this way. So theoretically speaking, the way the alphabet is taught could very well aid in changing a democratic society into a communist one within a few generations. However, if the Lancastarian style of teaching would be the means of teaching a communist alphabet, then I think that such a political transformation would occur at a much faster pace than if the communist alphabet were to be taught in the school system that the United States currently uses, simply because the Lancaster schools eliminate any kind of action that is apart from what the school deems as “acceptable”.
Post #6 The Ever-changing Map
In Chapter two of the Harley reading, we see that maps were used for means of power. For example, a historical map that would show all the surrounding cities was a form of surveillance, a way to control the social atmosphere of the time because those in power had the knowledge of where everybody was located. This knowledge of location would allow those in power to further investigate these mapped out areas and enable them to control what was socially going on. Surveillance reasons were not the only use for physical maps in history, but this usage of physical maps definitely encompasses at least some of the significance of historic maps. There have been many changes throughout the years in physical maps, the broadest of these changes being the purpose of the map. During July of 2009, I was on vacation on the Oregon Coast and picked up a book of maps that was titled Vacation Road Atlas 2009. This road atlas not only had maps in it, but pictures of all the fun things that I could do in each destination that it featured. There are many kinds of maps out there and I think it is safe to say that there are more kinds of maps now than there were back when maps were used as means to maintain power over a given area. More kinds of maps mean that things have changed and evolved in the world of maps, even though some may have stayed the same. The intention of the Vacation Road Atlas was not to show some individual where all the major cities were, but to show me as the reader where I can go to have fun. The purpose of the atlas was to sell these different attractions to me so that I would go there and spend my money at these places. Overall, the major change in this specific example of maps being used for power over time is its purpose, which has changed in many cases by the addition commercial images and descriptions of different destinations in order to attract tourists for the purpose of commerce. Commerce is not the change, since commerce is something that has been around for centuries. The change is in the photos and text, which ultimately result in commerce.
Harley goes on to say, “Both in the selectivity of their content and in their signs and styles of representation maps are a way of conceiving, articulating, and structuring the human world which is biased towards, promoted by, and exerts influence upon particular sets of social relations”. This idea is particularly true when applied to the changes that are taking place in maps, not only in physical ones, but primarily in digital maps that are being utilized by social networking tools. The largest change among digital maps that I have noticed lately is that some of them are customizable and through customization are ultimately personalized. For example, I have Google Maps, a form of GPS, on my Droid phone and it comes with an application called footprints. This app allows me to take a photo on my phone and set that image as a destination on my GPS. For example, if I put the address to my school into Google Maps, and take a picture of my favorite professor, or the inside of one of my classrooms, that is the image that will show up once my phone says I have reached that specific destination. The photo that shows up is one that only applies to my interests, and therefore would not be of use for anybody else. This example can somewhat be related to something like MapQuest that you can access from any online browser. MapQuest has the same idea behind it since it shows you digitally where your destination is and gives you directions how to get there, even if they are directions that you have to print out that aren’t instantaneous like the GPS version. The difference between a digital map that you can access via the internet and the Google Maps GPS system that I use on my phone is that one is usable to anybody while the other has been subjectively altered to fit my own personal interests. The content of Google Maps represents my own social relations, much like a social network does. Unlike Facebook or twitter, Google Maps may not show who I specifically talk to on a daily basis, but it definitely shows with directions and personalized images where I go on a daily basis. Someone could tell a lot about another person by looking at their Facebook page. A person could learn just as much about someone else by looking at their personalized GPS.
Post #5 The Spread of Modern Literacy and the Requirements That Come With It
Before the 13th century, the only people who were literate were church officials. The majority could not read, and relied on the clergy of the church to relay the information from the text. The common person had no choice but to believe whatever the clergy told them what the texts said, because the people were unable to read and had no way of knowing for themselves. However, all of this limitation on literacy began to change once some specific innovations came into the picture. In the Thomas reading, we that that “from the 13th century onwards, new organizational structures made it possible to satisfy, more or less, the new requirements for books expressed by a steadily growing number of clients”.
While going through the Thomas reading, I took note of these organizational structures that were being described in relation to these early texts, and the requirements that were set for them because today we are going though the same process. Changes are being made in society due to new organizational structures that keep coming up in technology. However, before I discuss the more modern organizational structures, I would like to focus on some of the earlier ones. Some of these are the establishing of the universities in correlation with the mass production of books via printers, as well as the invention of paper.
Due to the establishment of the universities, more people were being taught how to read so that more than just the religious sects could retract information from written texts. Through means of the universities being established, literacy was allowed to spread to the common people. Also, paper was cheaper than parchment and it worked as a good replacement, so the invention of paper thrown into the mix allowed for a cheaper and more productive way to spread books to the masses as well. This leads us to the most prominent feature of the 13th century which was how “the monasteries were no longer the sole producers of books of all kinds and thenceforth scarcely produced more than were needed for their own use” (Thomas). Also, with all the new innovations of this new era, new laws regarding authorship and plagiarism came along with them.
I thought it was interesting how the replication process worked before printers were used. The scribes would copy the text by hand and it was trusted to be exactly the same thing as the original without any copy write issues. When I read the Adrian Johns chapter, it all made sense to me. Today, we don’t doubt whether or not one printed book is different than the original because “we may assert that printed texts are identical and reliable because that is simply what printing is”(Johns). Hand-copying was the latest technology back then so the trusting mentality that we have today when it comes to printed texts is the same mentality people had before the 13th century. However, we are not able to copy texts today as they were able to back then because of copy write laws. The modern book can only be reproduced via the printing press.
Today, if you pick up a printed book, it is obvious that the stated author wrote it and so they get the credit for it. However, text today has even expanded past physical print, since we now have print on the internet. Anybody can post absolutely anything on the internet and make it look professional, or like it is their own work if it actually is the work of someone else. This is why we need to take extra measures when it comes to online text, unlike physical print where we can give the author their deserved credit without thinking twice. Similarly, images online are a totally different story. I recently found out that you can take an image off of the internet, change something about it, and then call it your own. This is odd to me since the rules that have been established for plagiarizing texts are much different. We can’t copy a text out of a book, or online, change something about it and call it ours. So why are the guidelines for copying images so different?
Post #4: The Disappearing Text of Harry Potter Books
The conclusion of the Drucker and McGann reading states that the “physicality of textual marks and shapes disappear in an act of reading determined to highlight certain kinds of conceptual references (content).” Do the physical aspects of texts disappear as we read them? When reading to determine a context, the answer is yes. By context in this case, I am definitely referring to the type that we find in novels, or real-life stories with a plot. The word plot is in fact synonymous but not exclusively, with the word context. This is not to be confused with the context that we may encounter while reading a list of facts that we may come across in a textbook. If the text is going to disappear (not in physical actuality, but in the mind of the reader) then the context needs to be interesting, and thick enough for the reader’s mind to be enveloped into it, where they no longer see mere words, but instead pictures of their imagination as they read the words.
This brings me to the subject matter of this post: Harry Potter books. How many of you have found yourself lost in the world of Hogwarts, surrounded by the characters of the story? While reading them could you imagine yourself feeling the emotions that they feel? Or perhaps smelling and tasting the same things they do? I remember feeling as if I were a part of the context every time I read one of these books, and in fact even can remember the looks on the faces of the characters as they encountered various conflicts. If it were just the words that people experience, then I doubt that the books would ever have been so popular. These books have gotten so far simply because people experience the context of the stories while reading them, rather than just reading about them. A context, or plot, may contain an environment, which is very much experiential. A context also consists of a circumstance, or situation; two items that cannot be grasped without experience. These are all things that we experience when we pick up a good book and read it.
Post #3
Autonomous discourse itself was definitely the most interesting thing to me in the chapter by Ong. I’ll admit I had to Google autonomous discourse in order to find out that it means independent discussion, but after doing so I think I was able to catch on pretty quickly. At first I thought that “independent” in this case means that the speaker or the writer is an independent person, but I was wrong. Independent in this case means that the discourse itself is actually independent from its maker. Here’s what I was able to make out of it after reading the text:
Firstly, if someone disagrees with something that someone verbally says, they can call it out with that person and start an argument then and there. The difference with written discourse in comparison to spoken discourse is that someone can put their argument into writing and then that piece of writing has the ability to go anywhere apart from the author. The writing can be seen by anyone and it still remains fixed no matter who disagrees with it because you can’t take up an argument with a text of any kind without finding the author of that text and talking to them in person. When an audible statement is heard, the one who hears it has the ability to respond audibly. With a written statement, you can’t write a statement back to it, arguing with what the first written statement is saying because the written statement has been detached from the author and now has become a record of what the author believes. In parallel, a person can argue with another person but a person is unable to argue with a photograph of another person. For this reason, there is a formality about written text that makes it official in comparison to speech.
Now when we apply autonomous discourse to the mass production of printed text via the invention of the printing press, one of the major reading revolutions according to Tom Carmody, we can see how people reacted when they disagreed with a text that was dispatched from the author.
First of all, in summary, the printing press was a major invention that acted as a stepping stone to the furthering of society in the way that we all perceive it today. Printing presses existed prior to the press that was invented by Johannes Gutenberg, but such presses consisted of wood blocks that had text carved into them. These wooden blocks were good for reproducing mass copies of one type of text, but were bad for reproducing multiple texts due to the strenuous task of carving each individual letter of the writing into the wooden blocks. Gutenberg introduced movable type which allowed the mass production of more than one type of text such as the bible, and other religious texts like the works of Martin Luther, who caused a religious reform to erupt all over Europe simply by the mass production of his writings.
If Martin Luther was unable to get his writings spread quickly across Europe, then it is hard to say if the religious reform would have occurred at all. However, since he was able to do so due to the new printing press with movable type, people didn’t know how to react. His followers read the works, and then passed them on for others to read. Since his opinions were written down, his works were credible and the common citizen either loved what he had to say or hated it and would react in a dramatic manner. Through his opposition we are able to see the dramatic reaction to his independent discourse which was the burning of the texts. Thousands upon thousands of Martin Luther’s texts were burned because people didn’t know what else to do because they weren’t accustomed to how we handle such disagreements this day in age, and that is by writing another text to counter the first. We see this type of text-based style of argument in the media all the time. Before the printing press, disagreement to independent texts happened on a much smaller level than they do now that we have even more advanced means of spreading independent texts, like computers and the internet.
