The Print Age: Prototype of Industrial Evolution

If the phonetic alphabet made visual independence possible, the printing press made it widespread. In The Gutenberg Galaxy, McLuhan argued that the most important aspect of movable type was its ability to reproduce the same text over and over again, and a press run of 100,000 copies of Understanding Media suggest that he was right. Because the print revolution demonstrated mass production of identical products, McLuhan called it the forerunner of the industrial revolution. He saw other unintended side effects of Guttenberg.

This is the Era where printed books finally introduced. Same text, content or information can be read by different people in the whole world.

With printing came a new visual stress: the portable book. It allowed people to carry books, so they could read in privacy isolated from others. Libraries were created to hold these books and also gave freedom to be alienated from others and from immediacy of their surroundings.

A clip below will give us more idea about the Print Age