Blog Post #6: EOTO (The Printing Press)

    The printing press is one of the most significant inventions ever made in the communications field, and it helped to do a lot within that field. The original printing press that everyone knows about was created in 1450 in Germany by Johannes Gutenberg, but there was one made earlier. The first printing press-like object was actually made in China in 868 AD, and it was a fundamental form of printing a book called block printing. The first book ever made in this style was called the Diamond Sutra. Though, as I said earlier, the printing press was truly created until 1450 by Johannes Gutenberg. The first book that was ever printed from this print was a Bible, and it was called the Gutenberg Bible, published in 1452. The inventions of the printing press would spread around Europe, and by 1491 Italy, Spain, and England had the printing press set up. The spread of the printing press around Europe led to the creation of the first-ever official newspaper called Relations from a German publisher in 1602

The impact of the printing press is something that is kind of obvious. First, it led to widespread literacy because publishing books became more accessible, so they became more popular. The easier it was to publish and print books, the more people could get their hands on books and learn how to read. The next way the print press changed the world was through the global news network that it helped to start. The fact that news could now be put on a piece of paper and shipped anywhere was a new concept, one that the people of the time learned to use so that news was able to be spread. The last way it changed the world was the ability to spread ideas; very similar to the new network, anyone could put their thoughts down on a piece of paper and have it move, and the world with people reading. The printing press was able to lead to ideas being able to be adapted from anywhere in the world.

    The printing press was a very important invention and one that led to a lot of good in the world who knows what the world would look like if it never existed. I think that it helped shape the modern communication field as well because, without it, that field most likely would not exist.