Explain the key cultural and social changes associated with the adoption of print

communication in early modern Europe and then discuss the significance for
Aboriginal culture of the use of print media in the colonisation of Australia.

The advent and consequent widespread adoption of print communication in early

modern Europe had massive social and cultural consequences. “By radically
increasing the number of books and reducing their cost, printing had great social,
economic and intellectual impact on European civilisation” (Saenger 1975 p.416).
Print communication by opening information to the public drastically altered literacy,
employment, religion, power relations and social structure in early modern Europe.
Similarly print communication played a key role in aiding the Christianising, and
colonisation of Australia, acting to suppress and dramatically alter the oral nature of
Indigenous culture as well as providing a method of dissent in some cases. It is clear
that print communication has been a major influence in society since its inception
with Francis Bacon naming printing, along with gunpowder and the compass, as the
three things that had transformed “the appearance and state of the whole world”
(Bacon 1900 p.366).

The printing press was a very influential force in altering the “fundamentally oral
nature of European culture” (Briggs & Burke 2005 p.23). In the Middle Ages oral
communication dominated Europe with governments, academics, churches and the
‘oral postal service’ taking advantage of the usefulness of the pulpit for
communicating information. Thus the printing press presumably invented by
Gutenberg in approximately 1450 aided the “shift from an oral folk culture to a print
made one” (Eisenstein 1993 p.xiii). It is argued (Yoon 2006) that the advent of the
printing press weakened European oral traditions and advance textual record-keeping.
This shift to text was quite rapid as by 1500 the printing press could be found in over
250 locations in Europe, with around 13 million books circulated by that time.
Mumford argues that “the swiftness and economy of the printing press, compared
with…spoken word more than makes up for the other human qualities that were
forfeited through the invention of the printing press” (Mumford 2006 p.94). However
the oral culture of early modern Europe was not entirely destroyed by the adoption of
print communication. Books began to be written in a manner similar to speech, many
preachers were influenced by texts such as the bible and printed ballads were used in
oral performances. This illustrates that “the old media of oral and manuscript
communication coexisted and interacted with the new media of print” (Briggs and
Burke 2005 p.56).

It is clear the printing press inevitably destabilized the local oral cultures of early
modern Europe and the associated communities that developed around the oral
dissemination of information. This is due to the individualistic nature of print culture
compared to oral culture. “To hear an address delivered, people have to come
together; to read a printed report encourages individuals to draw apart” (Eisenstein
2006 p.101). However the printing press brought about new types of communities
with clubs and micro-communities developing around different subject areas of
printed information. “Bookshops, coffeehouses, reading rooms provided new kinds of
communal gathering places (Eisenstein 2006 p.102). It is through these textual
gathering places that individuals could form a community and shared identity on the
basis of different interests. For example Briggs and Burke (2005) explain that
scientific subjects were debated in Child’s coffee house and Café de Maugis in Paris
was a centre for attacks on religion. Through this compartmentalization of the
information the print revolution brought to rise “new forms of identity began to
compete with an older more localized nexus of loyalties” (Eisenstein 2006 p.102). In
a similar fashion Anderson (1983) argues that by regarding its readership as a
community or a national public, the nineteenth century newspaper was key to the
establishment of a national consciousness.

The adoption of print communication in early modern Europe also had a profound
affect on the literacy of the general public. “Early modern Europe was a society of
restricted literacy in which only a minority of the population could read and fewer
still could write” (Briggs and Burke 2005 p.26). The printing press allowed for the
production of texts which both entertained and informed, “eventually leading to
higher literacy rates” (Yoon 2006 p.7). It is claimed (Schopflin 2003) that as a result
of this production of versatile text, literacy was no longer reserved for about 2–3
percent of the population, but instead it was spread among the population. Hence the
“printing press was a prerequisite for the distribution of identical texts to a literate
public indeed, it was perhaps the prerequisite for a literate public altogether” (Waters
2001p. 2). The extensive increase in literacy also helped to widen the spread of once
exclusive information to more people via print communication. For example “in
fifteenth century England mercers engaged in manuscript book trade were already
catering to the needs of lowly bakers and merchants” (Eisenstein 1979 p.62). Texts
began to be written and translated in the vernacular and “by the sixteenth century…
translators were employed to turn out vernacular versions of the more popular works
by ancient Romans” (Eisenstein 1979 p.122), further demonstrating the growth of
literacy and widespread reading in early modern Europe. Thus it is clear that print
communication generated the capacity to teach the masses to read and also caused
literacy to be necessary skill for participation in society.

In the same way the printing press, by increasing literacy, acted to decrease the
disparity between the educated upper class and the oppressed lower classes of early
modern Europe. “Printing broke the class monopoly of the written word and it
provided the common man with a means of gaining access to the culture of the world”
(Mumford 2006 p.94). In the same way Samuel Hartlib stated, “the art of printing will
so spread knowledge that the common people, knowing of their own rights and
liberties, will not be governed by way of oppression” (Hartlib 1641 p.14). It is
apparent that by increasing literacy rates and allowing for the widespread distribution
of texts, print communication allowed people of all classes to access and appreciate
text and move beyond authoritarianism. This presented a challenge to governments
and churchmen as for them “the basic problem was that print allowed readers who
had a low position in the social and cultural hierarchy to study religious texts for
themselves, rather than relying on what authorities told them” (Briggs and Burke
p.15). It is for this reason that the printing press is commonly thought to be one of the
greatest inventions in history, due to its ability to accelerate the dissemination of
knowledge and lower the costs associated, allowing ordinary people unprecedented
access.

This access to texts and subsequent questioning of authority is perhaps the most
important social effect of the adoption of print communication in early modern
Europe as knowledge and manuscripts were dominated by very few sources, namely
the church. In early modern Europe “the church which controlled most centres of
book production and the recruitment and training of copyists” (Eisenstein 1993p.141),
guarded knowledge and most people relied upon the church for dissemination of
information. Thus it was “easy for the church to control an illiterate world…
knowledge was in the hands of a tiny fraction of the population” (Burke and Ornstein
2006 p.73-4). However this was to change with adoption of print communication as
“the critique of authority was encouraged by print, which made two incompatible of
the same subject widely available” (Briggs and Burke p.18). For example Martin
Luther utilized the printing press to launch one of the greatest acts of dissidence
against the church known as the ‘Reformation’ in the sixteenth century. He circulated
a torrent of writing and pamphlets criticizing the church’s indulgences and other
obvious abuses and misinformation in an effort to reform religion. Further
undermining the church’s authority and its dominance of the print medium Luther
“encouraged the reading of the bible in the vernacular this involved new
translations…so that everyone had direct access to god without the need for clerical
mediation” (Briggs and Burke p.62). Luther’s use of print communication insured
that his theses and writing were spread rapidly to a wide audience. Thus it can be seen
that “the invention of printing undermined what as been described as…the
information monopoly of the medieval Church” (Briggs and Burke 2005 p.63) having
a profound impact on the society and culture of early Modern Europe.

The social and cultural changes to Indigenous society that occurred at the time of
colonisation as a result of print communication parallel that of the European
experience. Comparable to early Modern European culture, Aboriginal culture
experienced massive changes as a result of the shift from oral to written culture.
“Traditional Aboriginal culture was an oral culture with no written language and
printed materials…” (Rose 1996 p.xxi) and so the arrival of print culture, particularly
religious text, with European settlers was quite problematic for oral Aboriginal
culture. Goody (1986) asserts that the introduction of writing into oral cultures such
as the Australian Aboriginal culture creates a new division of literates and non-
literates with the latter occupying lower positions. He argues that print
communication “have ‘governed the form and the language of the discourse’ where
they have intervened” (cited in Avison and Meadows 2000 p.2). This illustrates the
social restructuring and the immediate lower position oral Aboriginal culture
experienced at the introduction of European written cultural discourse. Furthermore
Antone (2005) states that colonization brought with it “‘a reverence for the written
word as the most valid representation of fact’ and therefore the ways of the
Aboriginal people were negated and dismissed as invalid” (Antone 2005 p.3). Thus
the “superior” European written culture soon dominated and the oral culture of
Aboriginal Australia was seen as inferior, this becoming the basis of Christianization
and assimilation of Aboriginal people at the time of colonization.

As in early modern Europe Christian religion played a key role in dominating print
communication at the time of colonisation in Australia, having a major impact on
Aboriginal culture. At the time of colonisation European settlers aimed to civilise the
local Aboriginal people with Reverend Cowper stating in 1838 “the British colony
ought not to be satisfied with anything less than making them Christians and elevating
them to that scale in human society for which they may be fitted by instruction and
civilisation” (cited in Woolmington 1973 p.80). It was through the use of print
communication that European colonisers accomplished this process of
Christianisation and therefore civilisation of Aboriginal people at the time of
colonisation in Australia. It was widely believed that “a desire to read the bible would
lead the Aborigines to seek to learn and write and adopt Christian virtues” (Norris
2006 p.27). Similarly Commissioner Bigge stated that “in teaching, reading and
writing the principles of Christian religion it showed Aborigines… the means of
improving their condition” (cited in Woolmington 1973 p.29). This was partially
achieved by “the work of missionaries, some of them trained as linguists” that were
able to “provide Aboriginal people with biblical material in local languages” (Rose
1996 p.xxvii). It is clear that in the period of colonisation European settlers viewed
the reading and writing of printed Christian materials such as the bible as a key way
in which Aboriginal people could be ‘civilised’ and assimilated into European-
Australian culture.

Furthermore European settlers utilised print communication such as the early news
publications to proliferate the need and duty of colonisers to civilise the so-called
inferior native savages. For example “the Sydney Gazette wrote in 1825: ‘if we
therefore now hasten to their destruction or neglect to promote their salvation, shall
we be innocent or without blame’” (Norris 2006 p.127). Thus it can be seen that
European settlers used print communication to propagate European ideas and the need
for civilisation of Aboriginal people by Christianisation. In the same way Aboriginal
reserve managers moderated Aboriginal print material and allowed only Christian
matter to be circulated in the first Aboriginal news publications such as the Flinders
Island Chronicle in 1836. The Flinders Island Chronicle “had as its mission the
promotion of ‘Christianity, civilisation and learning amongst the Aboriginal
inhabitants” and “was handed to…the superintendent of Flinders Island for correction
before publishing” (Grossman 2006 p. 2). Again this notion of Christian values
providing the impetus for the ‘civilising’ and ‘whitening’ of Aboriginal people by
European settlers is obvious even in supposed Aboriginal print media.

However Aboriginal people managed to overcome the cultural barriers printing

created and utilized print communication to their advantage in colonization as a form
of dissent, protesting their mistreatment via the European written culture. “Mudrooroo
records the use as early as 1882 of a petition by residents of the Aboriginal station at
Coranderrk Victoria to protest about their living conditions” (Rose 1996 p.xxviii).
Similarly Anderson (2003) cites a petition formulated by Tasmanian Aboriginals
which was presented to Queen Victoria's Secretary to the Colonies in 1847 as one of
the earliest forms of Aboriginal protest via print communication. He states that such
examples of Aboriginal petitions illustrate that “the written text has been employed
by Indigenous Australians as a mode of political and cultural self-representation from
quite early in colonial history” (Anderson 2003 p.18). From these examples it is clear
the print communication brought about social changes for Aboriginal culture as in the
time of colonisation expression and dissent was facilitated through embracing print
communication.

Printing has created many social and cultural transformations in both European and
colonial Aboriginal society as well as revolutionizing text and learning. As such it is
no surprise that printing is often credited as marking the “transition between the end
of the Middle Ages and the dawn of the modern era” (Crowley & Heyer 2006 p.82). it
is argued that “after the printing press was invented we did not have old Europe plus
the printing press. We had a different Europe” (Postman 1993 p.18). The same can be
said of the impact of print communication in Aboriginal Australia at the time of
colonisation with massive social and cultural changes occurring as a result. It is clear
that print communication has had a massive influence throughout history since its
inception in 1450 spanning from early Modern Europe, to colonial Australia and
beyond.
References:

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<www.cst.ed.ac.uk/2005conference/papers/Antone_paper.pdf>

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