Description
Book SynopsisPROSE AWARDS MEDIA ADN CULTURAL STUDIES FINALIST 2024
The Gutenberg Parenthesis traces the epoch of print from its fateful beginnings to our digital present and draws out lessons for the age to come.
The age of print is a grand exception in history. For five centuries it fostered what some call print culture a worldview shaped by the completeness, permanence, and authority of the printed word. As a technology, print at its birth was as disruptive as the digital migration of today. Now, as the internet ushers us past print culture, journalist Jeff Jarvis offers important lessons from the era we leave behind.
To understand our transition out of the Gutenberg Age, Jarvis first examines the transition into it. Tracking Western industrialized print to its origins, he explores its invention, spread, and evolution, as well as the bureaucracy and censorship that followed. He also reveals how print gave rise to the idea of the mass mass media, mass marke
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An accomplished and detailed survey of life between the brackets. * Wall Street Journal *
A refreshingly sanguine take. -- Houman Barekat * The Guardian *
Provocative and fizzing with ideas. -- Alan Rusbridger * Prospect *
The Gutenberg Parenthesis follows the development of printing and its impact on society right up to the present day … Jarvis’s tempo is … fast and compelling, sweeping the reader along from Gutenberg to the present digital predicament facing society. -- Richard Ovenden * Financial Times *
Jeff Jarvis is the ideal guide for this fast-paced history of communication. Shrewd, witty and always generous to his fellow authors, this book is crammed with pointed observation and profound reflection on the present and future of information culture. As print transitions to the digital age, Jarvis explores the potentialities and dangers of unbridled access to information as a realist who sees a path to sanity as our media turbulence finds a new normal. * Andrew Pettegree, Wardlaw Professor of History, University of St. Andrews, UK *
Puts a sharp focus on how journalism will evolve in the digital age. * It's All Journalism *
Jeff Jarvis magisterially charts how the invention of printing shifted power from individuals and communities to experts and the undifferentiated 'masses,' and then brilliantly shows how the internet is reversing this half-millenium shift. Information in print became a controlled commodity with enforced scarcity that reinforced language and institutional borders and power. Initially extending the reach of thought, printing shaped that thought; the medium became the message, on steroids. Digital now makes possible and even insists upon richer, less controlled exchange of ideas, including fakes. What we need, Jarvis makes clear, is not censorship of our chaotic global conversation but clear goals, guardrails, and institutions to ensure inclusion, accuracy, and privacy. We are all facing this together, and are now all on notice to take up Jarvis' challenge. * Anthony Marx, President and CEO, New York Public Library *
Jeff Jarvis’ The Gutenberg Parenthesis invites disenchanted media users to scour the history of print for lessons that may help us build a better future for media. No one has thought as nimbly as Jarvis about how communications shape societies, and his polemic gives hope for these disenchanted times. * Leah Price, Henry Rutgers Distinguished Professor of English, Rutgers University, USA *
Table of Contents
Part I. THE GUTENBERG PARENTHESIS 1. The Parenthesis 2. Print’s Presumptions 3. Trepidation Part II. INSIDE THE PARENTHESIS 4. What Came Before 5. How to Print 6. Gutenberg 7. After the Bible 8. Print Spreads 9. The Troubles 10. Creation with Print 11. The Birth of the Newspaper 12. Print Evolves: Until 1800 13. Aesthetics of Print 14. Steam and the Mechanization of Print 15. Electricity and the Industrialization of Media 16. The Meaning of It All Part III. LEAVING THE PARENTHESIS 17. Conversation vs. Content 18. Death to the Mass 19. Creativity and Control 20. Institutional Revolutions Afterword: And What of the Book? Acknowledgements Notes Bibliography Index Colophon
