Essay (in lieu of examinations)
4. When publishing changes, so does society. Investigate and compare the impact of two publication technologies, one pre-1900 and one post-2000, on a specific aspect of society (e.g. education, politics, creative industries, science, entertainment, social relationships).
The nature of publishing involves the production and dissemination of information to the general public. The realm of publishing and the aggregation of recipients and audiences in various communities are relationally interdependent, such that a shift in publishing is symptomatic of the changes within society, and vice versa. Thus, when publishing changes, so does society. This essay will elucidate on two publication technologies, the printing press and digital publishing, examining its impact on an aspect of society, namely, the creative industries, and consider how the transition within publishing has enabled the development of the creative industries.
Creative Industries According to a report published by the Cultural Ministers Council in February 2008, The Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) has defined ‘creative industries’ as a broad term that encompasses multifarious forms of creative enterprises in Australia to include: “music and performing arts; film, television and radio; advertising and marketing; software development and interactive content; writing, publishing and print media, and; architecture, design and visual arts” (p. 5). In August 2011, former Arts Minister Simon Crean revealed a publication, Creative Industries, a Strategy for 21st Century Australia, acknowledging the creative industries for their significant contribution to the growth of Australia’s economy, citing that “a creative nation is a productive nation.” The advancement of publishing tools and technologies can be said to have generated new possibilities and innovative forms of content and expression for the artists and creative professionals, hence establishing a radically new culture and creative experience.
Prior to the prevalence of the printing press in the pre-1900s, the expression ‘creative industries’ were less likely to have been established. However, the term ‘creative’ surfaced in our language in the early 1600s (OED 2010), thereby indicating the presence of the inventive, imaginative and original artistic efforts. Drawing from the aforementioned description of the ‘creative industries’ in the 21st century, creative works in the pre-1900s may refer to a series of artistic expressions in literary forms, visual arts such as drawing and painting, music, dance and the like. The following section will explore effects of the printing press of the pre-1900s and its influence on individual aspects of the ‘creative’ that may later be considered as a collective whole.
Pre-1900: Printing press Since its first origins in ancient China, the art of printing has evolved significantly. In etymology, ‘print’ and ‘printing’ were first recorded as early as c.1300, primordially to denote an impression or mark through pressing a character or design on a surface (OED 2007). When it comes to printing, scholars have debated strongly and attested to Johann Gutenberg of Mainz as the inventor of the modern printing technology (Cope 2001; Stillwell 1972). Invented some 20 years before, the movable metal type printing technology holds precedence to the printing press technology. As the name suggests, movable type is an earlier form of technology in printing that utilizes movable elements made out of readily available materials like porcelain in the reproduction of texts and punctuation. The integration of the initial system of the movable type and Gutenberg’s later invention led to the rise of the printing press in 1470, where people began to realize the “commercial possibilities of the mechanical reproduction of texts” (Stillwell 1972, p. x). The mechanical reproductions of printing press involved pressing ink onto a surface and it is a highly time-efficient and organized process. Subsequently, advances in typographical technologies allowed for the mass print-production of other creative works such as the newspaper, books, novels, sheet music and art forms such as drawings, images, and photography.
An instances of a movable metal type and a form of printing press: the typewriter
The novel is a literary form of print publishing that is part of a creative endeavor.
Deegan and Sutherland noted that, “…the novel [is] developed in the context of a commercializing print culture” (2009, p. 6). Through the commercialization of print publishing, the society can be divided into smaller communities: the creators (responsible for producing data/content and expression), the printers and manufacturers (responsible for the process of printing, and manufacturing of paper, ink, etc.), the intermediaries between creators and consumers (agents, publishers, distributors, retailers, outlets such as newsstands and book stores) and lastly, users and consumers of such publications. In Caves’ article on Contracts Between Art and Commerce (2003), he claimed that an artist or a creator, i.e. “the author requires a publisher, the pop musician a record label […] each demands a diverse group of creative talents as well as a set of humdrum inputs” (p. 73) and the relational network is most commonly established through contractual obligations. Likewise, such agreements are structured to tackle possible incentive problems and decision rights. In accordance to the Act of Supremacy (1534), the rights of copy did not belong to the author, instead, it belonged to the intermediary: the stationer, and it follows that “authors were paid in lump sums for their manuscripts” (Laidler, cited in Cope & Black 2001, p. 215) for their new works. Later, the Act of Anne (1709) conferred that, authors of any pre-existing books who has not transferred the copies or shares of those books “shall have the sole right and liberty of printing such Book or Books for the Term of one and twenty Years…” (p. 216)
The emergence of the printing press has created a public domain for the distribution of creative literary forms. In like manner, creative artworks are promised with a wider range of audiences through greater circulation of artistic content. Generally, printing technologies have aided in the dissemination of data through communities, thereby encouraging literacy and the cultivation of interests in knowledge acquisition and appreciation for the arts amongst the populaces. The following section will show how digital publishing has impacted the creative industries and the ways in which print and digital publishing differ.
Post-2000: Digital publishing Despite the great success of the printing press technology in enabling mass-production and the propagation of creative content and forms of expression throughout society, with the rise of digital technology, print publishing is faced with challenges that proved its limitations and weaknesses.
Leading to the 21st century, hardware, software and technological development have created a new range of mediums, tools and techniques for publishing beyond the confinement of paper and ink. From the rise of desktop publishing in 1985 to its acceptance around 1993 (Cope & Black 2001, p. 161), innovative technologies that enable the digitization, recording and post-processing of visual, auditory, still and motion images allow for the production of creative contents such as art illustrations, graphic design, digital music and photography, film, television and so forth. As part of digital publishing, the Internet – is global system of networks that – offers a platform for various forms (literary, visual images, audio or video) of publishing. The act of publishing can be seen as a means of communication or reaching out to the masses, as Bolter and Grusin (1999) argued that, “new media pay homage to, refashion, or ‘remediate’ older media: photography remediated painting, film remediated stage production and photography, and television remediated film, vaudeville and radio” (cited in Deegan & Sutherland 2009, p. 6). Hereof, remediation refers to new forms of media adapting or developing from older forms of media.
A visual communication project (post-processed digital photography and graphic design) done by a Temasek Design School student, digital image captured using a DSLR.
A recent article in The Australian claimed that “[t]he digital democracy has made artists of us all. Anyone with a digital camera or smartphone -- that’s you and about 2.5 billion other people -- has the tools to make snapshots or fine-art photography” (Westwood 2013). This phenomenon not only applies to the field of photography, instead, it may involve almost all other aspects of the creative industries. Westwood has shown that technological advances have equipped us with user-friendly and easily accessible tools, providing “direct access to all forms of publishing, writing and communication of ideas” (Mercieca, cited in Cope & Black 2001, p. 78) to becoming creators ourselves, in turn, destabilizing the network between creators, manufacturers, intermediaries and consumers. “Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing,” wrote Sylvia Plath in her only novel, The Bell Jar (1963). Hitherto, to have an article, book or novel published, one would have to mail out manuscripts and typescripts to university presses and publishing houses. With the advent of the Internet, one has the option of submitting a manuscript or book proposal by filling in an online questionnaire on official websites of various major publishers like Pan Macmillan and MIT Press. Otherwise, anyone with a computer, an access to the Internet, specific software for individual purposes, and own an account to a publishing site (for instance, Blogger, Tumblr, Wordpress, Flickr) can easily self-publish content in any form and enjoy the reins of being a creator. Had Plath still be alive and writing, she would be overwhelmed! Consequently, Mercieca (cited in Cope & Black 2001, p. 79) argues that benefits of Internet-based publishing (or online digital publishing) poses a threat to the business models of traditional print publishing. Bilateral relations between the author and publisher may collapse, when an artist decides to self-publish. Without a third-party, self-publishing grants the author creative freedom (content, format, packaging design, strategies for advertising, marketing and distribution), complete access and authority to intellectual property rights of their works, and when revenue rolls in, all profits solely belong to the creators.
With the proliferation and widespread of digital technology, consumers gain free access to a multitudinous of public data, stemming from the Creative Commons (CC) project “that enables the sharing of digital cultural goods through a range of licenses that can be applied to a work, according to the terms desired” (Bourcier 2010 p. 23). Certainly, what is available on the World Wide Web (WWW) can be considered as public data. However, a creator may ascribe to the Digital License Platform in entering a contractual agreement that “grants permission, and states restrictions: access, reuse and redistribution”(Bourcier 2010 p. 33). While the assemblage of digital publishing has proven to be versatile in its forms, to an extent, it has its shortcomings. Although there are censorship laws that consumers of the Internet, film, television, news, music, artwork, creative arts, and the like should abide to, the rampant nature of digital publishing holds the possibility that any type of creative material may be readily available as archived data on the WWW. Given the variety of options, Internet users have to act at their own discretion when it comes to paying attention to content available on the Internet.
Otherwise, digital publishing has advantages that outweigh what print publishing has to offer. With digital publishing and technology, artists, authors and creators who share their works online can receive feedback and comments on their creative endeavor, allowing them to better understand the potential market and their audiences. Creativity is disseminated through digital publishing and the aggregations of responses are reverberated back. The responsiveness of this feature is lacking in print publishing. However, there are people who certainly favor visiting art galleries to appreciate artworks, paintings and sculptures over viewing them in their own comforts. Similarly, there are artists who prefer doing “things the old-fashioned way: slower, quieter and a bit more complicated, but producing work that may be more beautiful for being hard-won” (Westwood 2013).
Conclusion Deegan and Sutherland (2009) have observed that, “the constituencies of print remain diverse and overlapping, while those of the new technologies of electronic media – of the Internet and the various storage and retrieval devices whose interface is the computer screen – are increasingly diverse” (p. 2). In comparing the processes of printing and digital publishing, the obvious disparity would be the flexibility (allows for certain actions to be performed; undo) and versatility in the production of creative works, made possible by technological advances.
In conclusion, the Cultural Ministers Council (2008, p. 4) stated that the digital environment has provided challenges and opportunities to the creative sector, demonstrating the need for creative digital content for the continual development and growth of the digital environment. We see the importance in sustaining the creative industries through the growth of the digital environment however; the key to the transitioning publishing is to keep the balance between the old and new.
Word Count: 2033
References:
Bourcier, D, Casanovas, P, de Rosnay, M. D, Maracke, C 2010, ‘Digital Commons Works: Thinking Governance’, Intelligent Multimedia: Managing Creative Works in a Digital World, European Press Academic Publishing, Florence, Italy.
Caves, R. E 2003, ‘Contracts between Arts and Commerce’, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 17, no. 2, (Spring 2003), accessed 13 June 2013, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3216857>
Cope, B & Mason, D (eds) 2001, Creator to Consumer in a Digital Age: Australian Book Production in Transition, Common Ground Publishing, Australia.
Cultural Ministers Council 2008, Building a Creative Innovation Economy, accessed 9 June 2013,<http://mcm.arts.gov.au/sites/www.cmc.gov.au/files/Building_a_Creative_Innovation_Economy.pdf>
Deegan, M & Sutherland, K 2009, Transferred Illusions: Digital Technology and the Forms of Print, Ashgate Publishing Ltd, England, accessed 9 June 2013, <http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9780754670162>
Office for the Arts 2011, Creative Industries, a Strategy for 21st Century Australia, media release, accessed 10 June 2013, <http://arts.gov.au/sites/default/files/creative-industries/sdip/strategic-digital-industry-plan.pdf>
Stillwell, M. B 1972, ‘The Beginning of the World of Books 1450 to 1470: A Chronological Survey of the Texts chosen for Printing during the First Twenty Years of the Printing Art, with a Synopsis of the Gutenburg Documents’, The Bibliographical Society of America, New York, accessed 11 June 2013, <http://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.08879.0001.001>
Westwood, M 2013, Analogy gets back to the physical, The Australian, accessed 7 June 2013, <http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/analog-gets-back-to-the-physical/story-e6frg8n6-1226575685131>