Richard James Leis, Jr.

Modern humans make use of a variety of media to record, store, and transmit human knowledge in time and space. With the invention of the printing press in the 15th century, print in general and books specifically rapidly developed into a mass medium that, among other impacts, helped to spread literacy. In the 21st century, the World Wide Web is having a similar impact on literacy. Not all mass media have had the level of impact on education that print and digital media have had. In comparing the impact on education by these two mass media in the respective decades following the invention of the printing press and the web, I will support this observation. I will also show that the impact of a mass media on education is “eventual”, or delayed, compared to its impact on business and other human activities. I will conclude by suggesting a reason for why this might be the case.

While technology is popularly believed to progress one invention to the next, the process is actually much more complicated. Devendra Sahal showed in his seminal book Patterns of Technological Innovation that technological progress is an evolutionary system (37) where possibilities are enabled and constrained by numerous minor innovations and by the process of learning (38). Consider an analogy to gardening. A successful and productive garden is not simply the result of plants reproducing season after season. Instead, bounty is enabled and constrained by the complex ecosystem and environment in which the garden is grown, where a variety of experiments in soil type, watering schedule, sunshine level, use of fertilizer, variety of co-existing organism, weeding, etc. may eventually lead to bounty. Implicit in this description of a garden and gardening is the learning capabilities and opportunities of the gardener.

Multiple innovations, practices, business models, networking opportunities, and other activities come together in complex ways to provide the appropriate environment from which new innovations may sprout. Technologies arrive logically (xii); that is, they arrive when the technological environment is right. Viewed in this way, technology is a platform on which further innovation can occur. The printing press did not lead directly to all the paper media we enjoy today. Rather, the printing press evolved and combined with many other minor and major innovations, contributing to the technological platform that supports the design, production and distribution of printed content. Likewise, the web evolved and combined with many other minor and major innovations, contributing to the technological platform that today supports the design, production and distribution of digital content.

Printed and digital content, through books and the web, respectively, are milestones in human history. Books and the web serve as platforms for the communication of human knowledge. The mass media between them – namely radio, telephony and television – have had only minor impact on education. For example, in “Teaching as an Amusing Activity” Neil Postman attacks the idea that television and schools (through the use of books, writing, and teacher instruction) provide the same learning experience. Television is a mass media that, due in part to its characteristics, serves primarily as entertainment. The content broadcast through television is therefore primarily entertainment.

It might seem obvious that the web and digital media should come under the same attack. After all, news and commentary about digital media these days tend to focus on the rapid rise of entertainment options on the web. However, one must remember that digital media is just that: a collection of various content, made digital and deployed across increasingly ubiquitous communication networks. Text remains a primary component of the web, even as other content and combinations of content explode in growth. The web, it seems, can sustain not only the level of ideas tied to entertainment that Postman laments, but the book-learning, interaction, and democracy that he champions.

Hypertext and hypermedia are not new concepts (Deibert, 115) and neither is the exploration of the possible impact of something like the web on education. Why then was the use of the web for general education delayed compared to other activities? During the early 1990s, the web was for scientists to store and share their data more easily. By 1996, people outside of scientific academia were beginning to think of the web as a platform for digital text, graphics, and image data, but mostly for business reasons rather than educational. By 1997 the web was rapidly becoming a platform for business, commerce, and entertainment. Only later did schools and universities begin to embrace the web as a platform for education, rather than just a glorified brochure. For example, articles online suggest the experimental use of automated essay grading tools in 1998 and the use of WebAssign in 1999 (Guernsey).

The January 2, 2009 issue of Science includes several examples of education undergoing radical change through technology, including the web. South Korea is building a country-wide “cyber home learning system” (62-63). Self-paced online modules with limited machine intelligence are being deployed to teach mathematics (64-65). You find in these and other papers some of the hype that Postman might point out and critique, but you also find an attention to the best that school room instruction and books have to offer.

So today the web is an integral part of many classes, but the web was an integral part of business much sooner. To explore why the web only eventually impacted education after impacting other activities, I will consider how and when print impacted education after the mass production of print became possible in the mid-1400s with the invention of the printing press and dropping price of paper. This distinction between mass production of print versus the invention of print is important. Books were around for centuries prior to their mass production. The impact of print on education was limited to a select elite and spread out centuries. With the printing press there was finally a technological platform that enabled the spread of print to wider demographics. Availability of books increased and prices fell. However, in the immediately decades after the printing press was invented, general education did not change much from earlier times.

Books created by printing press – in an increasing number of languages and about an increasing number of topics – did begin to find their way into schools at a quickening pace as the 15th century came to an end. However, this pace was not as quick as one might otherwise expect. For example, Febvre and Martin suggest that “printing does not seem to have played much part in developing scientific theory at the start” (259). Furthermore, they agree that little impact at all is evident at first (260). The old way of making books and the new coexisted into the early 16th century (262). Finally, private libraries began to increase in number only in that century (262), a delayed consequence of mass production and falling prices.

The impact on business was not delayed, building as it did on the pecia system, the means by which stationers doled out sections of books to be copied. Prior to the printing press, the copying of books was a lengthy and manual task that begot a variety of jobs and business practices. Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin describe the “stationer” and his complex role in the contemporary book copying industry (20 – 21). When the printing press arrived it “simply represented [to the authorities] a handy means of multiplying indispensable texts even more rapidly and accurately than was possible under the pecia system” (21).

Books were already reaching a broader audience by the time the printing press went into widespread use, but the new technology was immediately constrained by the contemporary status of books. The audience was still limited to that of an elite concerned with copying books for its own use. Due to their scarcity and the scarcity of those who could read them, books were often read out loud in groups, rather than enjoyed quietly by oneself (23).

In the meantime, the printing and paper industries evolved and grew, enabling new types of jobs, wealth, and a process by which more and more people could learn about these technologies. This learning was narrow in scope, with business aims rather than general education. Entrepreneurs, workers, and third-parties involved through their own industries with the printing industry learned more about print as part of their job and direct economic livelihood.

The web followed a similar trajectory. In 1993 there was already a broader audience for digital media by the time the web went into widespread use, but the new technology was immediately constrained by the contemporary status of digital media. The audience was still limited to that of an “elite” concerned with distributing digital content in “closed gardens” like AOL. Due to their scarcity and the scarcity of those who could produce and make use of them, digital media was often consumed in groups, rather than enjoyed by oneself.

In the meantime, the digital media, internet and web industries evolved and grew, enabled new types of jobs, wealth, and a process by which more and more people could learn about these technologies. This learning was narrow in scope, with business and academic science aims rather than general education. Entrepreneurs, workers, and third-parties involved through their own industries with the web industry learned more about the web as part of their job and direct livelihood.

The eventual impact of a new mass media on education is a logical and evolutionary consequence of a limited audience in the beginning, and the time required for industries to sprout up around it and people to be trained in its use. Then these early adopters can help to spread the mass media through business, commerce and entertainment, while exposing new audiences to it. Meanwhile, and though this evolutionary process, the mass media improves with new innovators and innovations. When mass adoption begins, the mass media reaches a point where people can begin to make use of it in education.

As described by Lisa Jardin in “The Triumph of the Book” chapter of Worldly Goods, mass production only came after decades of further development and experimentation, as well as social change. Both mass production and literacy gains were required for books to spread, a process that could not happen overnight. Likewise, the invention of HTML and protocols for easily sharing data across networked computers did not immediately lead to mass production of web pages and data storage. Both mass production and web literacy gains were required for the web to spread.

Other constraints affect the order in which human activities are impacted by a new mass media. For example, the elite of human knowledge might actively seek to slow down the spread of these new technologies. Compare the religious stranglehold on written content circa 15th century to the “Old Media” stranglehold on digital media circa the past decade. In both cases, competitors and underground black markets eventually developed to usurp the old powers, resulting in more widespread access to content. Because education also serves as a means by which the values of a society are taught to the young, authorities may delay the introduction of new ideas based on a new mass medium to preserve those values.

There comes a time in the development of a mass medium when technological innovations lead to further reduction in costs and more opportunities for wider access and participation. Alongside the printing press and the availability of books came innovations in paper and ink production and distribution. A variety of different types of content began to be encoded in books, including guide books, erotica, and the Bible in local languages. The educational chasm between the knowledgeable elite and the general population increased, but the low bar of literacy began to rise as the availability of books spread and their prices fell.

The web has followed a similar trajectory from a small population of elite and early adopters, through impact on business and business-related training, entering into other domains of activity like entertainment, reaching broader segments of the population until enough people are adept enough for the web to make inroads in education. Now we regard the web as an educational platform, sometimes replacing traditional schools completely (for example, successful online high school initiatives in Colorado and other locations.) However, the web took less than twenty years to reach this point; print took decades longer.

Print and the web are similar in another way: they devour the mass media that came before. Print was eventually able to capture and mass produce a textual representation of auditory performance like the stage, a speech, or the lessons previously passed down through aural tradition. Now the web is devouring print (and radio and television) and transforming industries. In 2009 it has become clear that newspapers, book publishers, and other industries focused on physical media are collapsing as their content is digitized and made available online. The analog world is vanishing, replaced by indistinguishable digital representations that people recognize as the same or similar, yet these digital representations hide in their bytes vast potential well beyond the capabilities of analog media.

Just as analog media rapidly vanishing, so to are old models. Traditional education at the K-12 and university level is not immune to this. Education is right now undergoing a transition that is stunning in its scope and pace although the outcome remains unclear. Therefore, it is more important than ever to explore how similar mass media transitions occurred in the past. We may not be able to stop the transition, even if we wanted to, but we might be able to ease the growing pains that accompany such shifts. By exploring the impact of print on education over decades and centuries, we gain perspective on the impact of the web on education. We might even become aware of and prepare for difficult consequences and ramifications before they occur.

The web remains a mass media evolving rapidly through innovation. Print is not; the print-related innovations that do still occur involve digital media and the web, a process by which the web devours print. With coming inventions like the Sensor Web, the Semantic Web, and machine intelligence comes the technological platform that will support the next milestone mass medium: the Metaverse. The Metaverse is a combination of virtual worlds (like Second Life), mirror worlds (like Google Earth), Augmented Reality (the overlay of digital data on reality), and Lifelogging (the increasingly detailed record of our existence), and it is built on a collection of technologies that dwarf the current internet in complexity and capability. I predict, based on the above exploration of print and the web, that the Metaverse will impact business first, followed by commerce, entertainment, and other activities. Only after it becomes more ubiquitous, after people begin to train in its business, and it begins to reach wider and wider audiences will the Metaverse impact education. This impact will also be eventual, but will occur at an unprecedented pace, just as the web’s impact seems to have outpaced the impact of print.

Bibliography

Books

Deibert, Ronald J. Parchment, Printing, and Hypermedia. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.

Febvre, Lucien and Henri-Jean Martin. The Coming of the Book. The Impact of Printing 1450-1800. Thetford, Norfolk: NLB, 1976.

Jardine, Lisa. Worldly Goods. New York: Double Day, 1996.

Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Viking, 1985.

Sahal, Devendra. Patterns of Technological Innovation. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1981.

Journal Articles

Bhattacharjee, Yudhijit. “A Personal Tutor for Algebra”. Science 2 January 2009: 64-65.

Mayadas, A. Frank, John Bourne, and Paul Bacsich. “Online Education Today”. Science 2 January 2009: 85-89.

Normile, Dennis “Korea Tries to Level the Field”. Science 2 January 2009: 62-63.

Online

Guernsey, Lisa. “Textbooks and Tests That Talk Back“. The Chronicle of Higher Education 12 February 1999. [Retrieved 30 April 2009]

You can follow responses to this entry with this RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.