Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Eisenstein made a very audacious claim about the relation between printing and the Reformation, as well as the Renaissance. Luther and many contemporaries were deeply aware that they were able to stir up a cognitive and ideological revolution at least in part because of how easy it was to move their stuff around. This book is not capable of delivering an answer to the question of what’s going to happen in the next 100 years, but reading it is stimulating for thinking about that.
Which is why your next book is The Printing Press as an Agent of Change?
Yes, for related reasons. Elizabeth Eisenstein made a very audacious claim about the relation between printing and the Reformation, as well as the Renaissance. And certainly Luther and many contemporaries were deeply aware that they were able to stir up a cognitive and ideological revolution at least in part because of how easy it was to move their stuff around. Again, I don’t find it conclusive – that there would have been no Reformation without the printing press – but certainly there’s an intimate connection. So reading this work is stimulating. It’s not capable of delivering an answer to the question of what’s going to happen in the next 100 years. But I find it stimulating to think in terms of big blocks of historical transformations, and these two books are both stimuli of some sort.
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Todd Gitlin is a professor of journalism and sociology, as well as chair of the PhD program in communications at Columbia University. He is the author of 12 books, several of which concern media and culture, and a prominent commentator on the US media. He writes regularly for Dissent, The American Prospect, TPMcafe.com, and opendemocracy.net. He suggests that no successful model for newspapers to make money from the internet exists, and that there is no future for the industry without government support.
