Print Media

Printing on paper originated in China around the 8th century CE, with the use of wooden blocks carved to reproduce text or images. The Chinese also used baked clay movable type. Block printing spread to Europe in the 14th century. The first European printing press using movable metal type was probably developed around 1450 by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz. By 1500, there were 250 printing presses in Europe. Early type attempted to mirror the appearance of handwriting. Early printers produced bibles, romances, lives of the saints, travel guides, sermons, ballads, handbills, Latin and Greek classics in their original languages and the vernacular, and many other works to be read by an increasingly literate public. Formats included single sheets of paper called broadsheets or broadsides, chapbooks or booklets made of single large sheets folded in four, and multiple-page bound volumes.

Printing presses increased the speed and accuracy with which written works could be copied, thus increasing the ability of information to travel through and between communities. Printed works were used in the dissemination of new ideas, thoughts, and ideologies, from Luther and Calvin to Marx, as well as news of business matters; politics; scientific, geographic, and medical discoveries; and other events. Printed media, especially newspapers and other periodicals, constituted the sole mass media until the development and widespread adoption of radio broadcasting in the early 20th century, followed by television in the late 1940s and 1950s and the Internet in the 1990s.

Many works that were developed using print format are adding, or moving entirely to, an electronic format for Web delivery, including newspapers, popular magazines, academic journals, technical books, and even literary books. The print-on-paper format, however, remains the most suitable for long-term storage, without the data loss or retrieval problems of the electronic format. For more information, see Crowley and Heyer (2007), Febvre and Martin (1997), and Stephens (2007).