Gutenberg's Printing Press
Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press was a piece of revolutionary technology in the 15th century. Before the printing press was invented, creating copies of books was incredibly tedious work because they were required to be copied entirely by hand. With use of the printing press, workers were able to put together 2,000 characters per hour to print a book, making the entire process of bookmaking cheaper and faster. Books were in higher demand at this point because more and more people were able to read and libraries could now hold more books. The amount of literate people in society also grew as books became more popular and easier to access.
The printing press was the first invention that helped to create mass communication in society. Books and newspapers could now be printed at a faster pace and cheaper price, allowing many more people to be able to afford a piece of this type of media. Since the mass production of newspapers could now be created, current events and stories could be shared with people all over. Today, people still read the newspaper, whether it’s online or in print. Everyone in society is used to staying up to date with recent reports, and they like to feel informed about what’s going on in the world today. One of the biggest negative impacts the printing press, in terms of the creation and distribution of the newspaper, is that now people are often fed false information about events occurring. People are also sometimes too informed or are left out valuable pieces of information in a specific event. This type of mass media is what has led to tabloids, which is full of false information that society loves to read and sometimes even believes.
This spectacular invention became obsolete when technology became a little more advanced. As the years went on and technology progressed, printers became more complex and sophisticated. Printers evolved from Gutenberg’s first blueprint to ones built with more efficient designs and faster speeds. In reality, we never really stopped using Gutenberg’s printing press; we just revolutionized it. Nowadays, there are printers that we can have just sitting in our homes that are used to print out pictures, writing, copying, or almost anything else we want it to.