Notes
Taking notes
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J200 - Week
© J.T.Johnson 1999-2003_____________________________Fall
2003
Notes
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J200: Journalism and Mass
Communications - Week Va
News in Preliterate Societies
News of the Day….
 NYT-Crime Of Editing
 Armies of Consumers: 1776’s Secret
Weapon
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News in Preliterate Societies
Source: http://www.mediahistory.umn.edu/time/gallery/horse.html
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Data/info timeline
 75,000: Estimated date of geometric
carvings found on rocks in South African
cave.
 45,000: Neanderthal carvings on Wooly
Mammoth tooth, discovered near Tata,
Hungary
 30,000: Ivory horse, oldest known
animal carving, from mammoth ivory,
discovered near Vogelherd, Germany
Source: http://www.mediahistory.umn.edu/time/century.html
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Data/info timeline
 28,000: Cro-Magnon notation, possibly of
phases of the moon, carved onto bone,
discovered at Blanchard, France
 10,000: Engraved antler baton, with seal,
salmon and plants portrayed, discovered at
Montgaudier, France
 8,000 -- 3100 BCE: In Mesopotamia, tokens
used for accounting and record-keeping
Source: http://www.mediahistory.umn.edu/time/century.html
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News in Preliterate Societies
Newspaper Rock, Utah
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1720-58Anonymous artists create the earliest surviving paintings on
hide from New Mexico, known as Segesser I and Segesser II.
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Mayan Hieroglyphic Writing 1
Source: http://www.halfmoon.org/syllabary.html 10/02
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Pre-industrial communication
 Dead Media Project
http://www.deadmedia.org/notes/index-cat.html
 Pre-industrial-age communication
http://www.deadmedia.org/notes/index-cat.html#pi
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Definition of News
 “New data about a subject of some public
interest that is shared with some portion
of the public.” –M. Stephens
 News/publishing does NOT equal journalism
 Definition/purpose of journalism:
“The central purpose of journalism is
to provide citizens with accurate and
reliable data/information they need to
function in a free society.” -- Bill Kovach
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Early News
Enlighten me now, o Muses
Tenants of Olympian homes,
For you are goddesses, inside on
everything, know everything.
But we mortals hear only the news, and
know nothing at all.
-- The Illiad
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Early News
 “Humanity does not pass through phases
as a train passes through stations.”
-- C. S. Lewis
 I.e. The coffeehouse flourishes in England
after the development of newspapers
 Some media more likely to leave behind
record (e.g. no archive for word-of mouth
news)
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News in Preliterate Societies
 Market places:
 Verbal exchange
 Relationship btwn news and economy
 “Welcome traveler. Tell me of the news”
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News in Preliterate Societies
 China. 3500 BCE
 Horse become first “technology” to speed the
flow of news
 Lack of organized, systematic
dissemination. To the public.
 Was the public without news?
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News in Preliterate Societies
 Ibo (Nigeria): drums of death
 Toradja (Celebes Islands): fire a gun;
close village to hear drum
 Zulu: “Tell me the news of the country”
 Notk (Vancouver Island): visitors at feast
expected to recount “all the latest
novelties.”
 Jamaica (c. 1960s): “higglers” – who
bought food from farmers – shared news
of the city.
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So why this thing for news?
 Stephens: “the furious itch of novelty”
 Why do we care?
 Anthropologist view
 Biologist’s evolutionary view
 Survival and….
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Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Source: http://www.cre8pc.com/images/judi_2.gif
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From Stone to Papyrus (c. 3000-2500BCE)
 Egypt: shift from absolute monarch to
more “democratic” organization
 Shift from stone/clay as medium of
communication (or prestige) to
 Emphasis on papyrus (2750-2540 BCE)
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Cuneiform
http://www.mediahistory.umn.edu/time/gallery/cuniform.html
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Cuneiform Cylinder
Source:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=www.columbia.edu/acis/textarchive/rare/1b.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.columbia.edu/ac
Notes
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is/textarchive/rare/1.html&h=439&w=264&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcuneiform%2Bcylinder%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26l
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r%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8
Egyptian hieroglyphic
Source: http://www.fnspo.cz/mmm/egypt/hiero/11.htm
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Egyptian hieroglyphic
 Beginning of “grammar” i.e. “rules” that
would be commonly understood by those
other than the creator of the
communication
 Growth of “knowledge worker” class
 “education” and skills become valued
 Society supports those who do more than just
provide for the base levels of Maslow’s needs
 “Expected” and “Shared” communication
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Significance of Egyptian Alphabet
 By 2900 BCE, for of script and use of
signs fully developed
 By 2825 BCE, direction of writing and
arrang. of words in “logical” position in
sentences.
 Communication over long distances
emphasized uniformity in writing.
 On large tablets, writing ran from let to
right. Why?
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Clay and Social Organization
 Commercial activity required many scribes
 Same as the digital revolution required code
jockeys ( programmers )
 Hard to learn so that meant schools
necessary
 Used temple accounts and “sign lists” by
priests as first “schoolbooks”
 Schools built in connection with temples,
emphasis on grammar and math
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Clay and Social Organization
 Art of writing basis of education
 Controlled by priest, scribes, teachers, judges
 Every act of civic life is a matter of law (seals,
contracting parties and witnesses)
 City courts developed
 Court decision become basis of civil law.
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Papyrus and Crocks
 Perlman: “Ancient Egyptians Wrapped
Crocodiles in Good Reading”
 The Contents of The Tebtunis Papyri
 http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/APIS/Images/ind
ex.html
 The Media History Project Connections
Pages: Oral & Scribal Culture
http://www.mediahistory.umn.edu/oral.html
 Duke Papyrus Archive
http://odyssey.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/
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Papyrus Technology
 Made from Cyperus papyrus only
found in Nile Delta
 Extremely light (significance?)
 Brushes, also from plant
 Black and red inks (same colors as
Maya)
 Wrote from right to left, kept rolling
papyrus scroll in left hand. Why?
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Organization of Scribes
 Writing had been restricted to gov’t.,
fiscal, magical and religious purposes
 Papyrus and simpler hieroglyphic
script into characters leads to more
efficient administration
 Scribes/officials respon. for collecting
and spending $$$ organized as a civil
service.
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Organization of Scribes
 After 2,000 BCE, new class of scribes
 Literacy becomes stepping store to prosperity
and social rank.
 “The scribe comes to sit among the member
of the assemblies … no scribe fails to eat the
victuals of the king’s house.”
 “Put writing in your heart that you may
protect yourself from hard labor of any kind
and be a magistrate of high repute. The
scribe is released from manual tasks.”
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Effects of Writing and
Equality
 Redistribution of Power
 King gains from revolution as
incarnation of the king gods
 Ritual enables king to appoint
proxy as prophet
 Power delegated to professional
priests
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Chinese literacy
 4,000 years old
 Began as picture writing; phonic elements
added gradually
 Relatively minor changes in script
 Until 3rd Century BCE, wrote on bone,
stone, wood, metal and bamboo
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Chinese Writing - 3rd Century to 0
Century
 Bristle brush developed
 Ink of pine soot or black earth
 Paper: -- cheap, convenient, portable
 Tsai-Lun, super. of weapons factory, invesnts
in 105 A.D.
 Cooked mush of plant fibers, bark, hemp,
rags and water
 Poured onto screens of bamboo strips.
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Chinese Writing
 600 A.D. -- Papermaking to Korea and
Japan
 751 A.D. -- Paper mills in Baghdad,
Damascus and Egypt
 11th/12 Cent. -- technology to Europe via
Spain
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Chinese Writing
 Early on, discovered block printing. Same
basics as today
 Reverse image
 Press
 Paper
 Ink
 1045: Pi Shang, metalworker, invents
press with movable characters of metal
clay and wood. 40,000 characters.
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Chinese News Gathering
 206 B.C. -- Han dynasty sets up postal
network throughout empire
 Used only to provide info to the imperials
courts, not masses
 618-907 A.D. -- Handwritten official news
paper, ti pao, published. News to gov’t
officials.
 960-1278 -- Sung dynasty, ti pao,
disseminated among intellectuals
 1367-1844 -- Ming period. Wider
distribution of ti pao
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Movable Type
1450: all essential ingredients for mass production of printed
thoughts at hand:
Paper has replaced vellum in manuscripts
Codex has replaced the scroll as preferred form for
books
Experiments in metalographic printing underway in
France, Holland, Germany:
 1430 - metal letters as dies, pressed into clay
 Lead printing block cast from clay mold
 Plate inked and pressed to paper
 Usually poor reproduction
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Movable Type
 Gutenberg employs individual metal




letters; reusable
Type set in equal lines
Thin pieces of led placed between lines
Columns locking to a “matrix,” which is
inked
Paper pressed against matrix with “grape
crusher” of winemaker
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1550 Printing Studio
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Gutenberg’s Bible
 Produced in 1455 or 1456
 Press run of between 70 and 270 copies
 Within 50 years, press runs in the
thousands become the norm
 Book production up; prices fall
 Book publishing become profitable,
international business
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Post-invention of moveable
type
 Media History timeline
http://www.mediahistory.umn.edu/time/
1400s.html
 By 1492, there are 90+ publishers
scattered around Europe. Publish C.
Columbus’s report before he returned to
Spain.
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Post-invention of moveable
type
 Printing ends monopoly of church-
produced books
 Histories
 Geographies
 Biographies
 Observations of physical world; beginning of
“science”
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Post-invention of moveable
type
 Growth of literacy
 Widespread availability of cheaper
literature
 Clear glass windows allow illumination
of interiors
 Invention of eyeglasses in 17th Century
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Post-invention of moveable type
 Accelerates Protestant revolution/
Reformation
 Martin Luther nails Ninety-five Theses to
university church door in Wittenberg.
Then prints them for distribution
 Luther and evangelical associates become
first true mass communicators
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Post-invention of moveable
type
 Cost of printing still dropping
 Reformers start printing Bible in common
languages
 Catholic church attempts to keep faithful
from reading
 1564: Catholic church issues Index of
Prohibited Books
 Updated every 50 years. Includes works of
Galileo and Kepler
 Index exists until 1966.
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English “news” ballad c. 1586
But now beholde my great decay;
Which on a sodaine come;
My sumptuous buildings burned be
By force of fires flame:
A careless wretch, most rude in life,
His chymney set on fire,
The instrument, I must confess,
Of God’s most heavie ire
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