Printing press as an agent of change

Media Studies 111 – Fall 2020 Essay Assignment #1

The Printing Press: An Agent of Change? DUE: Monday, October 5th by 11 AM

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Format: 1300-1600 words, 12-point font, 1-inch margins, double-spaced, works cited page.

Purpose of Essay #1 To examine the role of the printing press as an agent of change. Drawing on available course readings, supplementary readings, and other scholarly material, you will define and evaluate a change brought about by the introduction of the printing press. Your essay should address at least one term or concept introduced by Elizabeth Eisenstein in The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (see below for suggestions).

Three prompt options: choose one (1) 1. Rulership, governance, and state power: the introduction of print changed

how rulers and governments conducted their business, in ways both subtle and obvious. Compose an argument explaining how a specific aspect of governance or rulership changed as a result of print. You may address any feature or field typically associated with governance, including public relations, taxation, the administration of justice, diplomacy, war, colonial expansion, censorship, regulation, propaganda, and (a perennial favorite) the self-promotion of rulers.

2. Political, religious, or cultural activism: though print enhanced the capacities of governments to administer and control populations, it also expanded opportunities for mobilization and action to many groups and individuals outside the halls of power. Compose an argument explaining how print enabled a person, organization, or social group to assert themselves politically, religiously, or culturally. You may address the activities of historical agents seeking to attract like-minded supporters, organize new institutions, convey messages critical of ruling elites, combat encroaching government power, or legitimize a moral position.

3. Science, exploration, and knowledge: print arrived concurrently with revolutions in the fields of knowledge and information gathering. Compose an argument explaining how printing influenced the activities of scholars, scientists, and explorers in a specific field of science or knowledge. You may

consider how these historical agents gathered, recorded, organized, shared, compared, compiled, synthesized, published, and read about information.

Assignment Requirements (see also Grading Rubric)

1. An introductory paragraph ending with an argument in the form of a thesis statement explaining how printing led to a specific change in human activity.

2. A brief description of the historical agents or institutions you will examine. Who were these people? What were they hoping to achieve?

3. An explanation of the concept(s) or term(s) drawn from Elizabeth Eisenstein’s work that you will use in your essay.

4. Several well-organized body paragraphs proving your claim by drawing on and assessing available evidence.

5. A concluding paragraph restating your argument in light of the evidence and analysis you provided.

6. Thorough source citations (MLA or Chicago) and a Works Cited section. 7. At least four published sources. For this assignment, a book chapter will

count as a single source (if you use multiple chapters from the same book, be sure to cite each separately). See below more information.

Sources There are three ways to find appropriate sources for this assignment. You may use:

1. Course readings. Briggs and Burke, Elizabeth Eisenstein, and Andrew Pettegree are obvious choices.

2. Readings listed and/or linked in the Course Bibliography or provided in the Supplementary Readings folder on Bcourses.

3. Additional sources you find electronically through the UC Library system (see below).

What counts as a Published Source?

Counts towards the four published source requirement

• any work published by an established academic or commercial press, whether in hardcopy (paper) or electronic form

• book chapters • edited volumes • journal articles • reference works

Does NOT count toward the published source requirement, but can be used and cited

• Open-source articles (Wikipedia) • Blog posts and independent webpages • Student or conference papers (unless included in a

published volume) • Lectures and lecture slides (for MS 111 or otherwise) • If you have any questions about whether a source will

count, please ask me by email or via Slack

Finding Outside Sources For more, please see the Research and Writing Resources Page on Bcourses. I will set aside 20 minutes in class to review our options for doing research remotely.

1. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ Your one-stop shop for sources of every kind, including books, journals, articles, newspapers, multimedia sources, and much more.

2. Oskicat: Provides access to books in the UC Berkeley library system, including many electronic resources.

3. JSTOR: A fantastic database containing thousands of articles, primary sources, and now increasingly books as well.

4. Project Muse: An excellent supplement to JSTOR, Project Muse contains many additional journals and many books.

Overall Suggestions for Essay #1 On Research and Brainstorming

• Before you start writing, you’ll want to do a bit of research. Pick one of the three prompts, then choose a few readings from the course readings and Course Bibliography that address that prompt in some way. Andrew Pettegree’s The Book in the Renaissance and The Invention of News both contain many interesting chapters on various topics and are excellent, highly readable sources to start with. There are also several chapters in Elizabeth Eisenstein’s The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe that are not in the assigned course reading, but nevertheless are highly usable for specific topics. Beyond those, the Course Bibliography contains many other sources, depending on what topic you’ve chosen.

• If you would like, therefore, to look at the effects of printing outside of Europe, you are welcome to do so. The Course Bibliography includes sources on the effects of printing in China and other areas of the world.

• Begin by considering what kind of a change you will focus on. Was the change primarily social, political, economic, technical, conceptual, or cultural? There is plenty of room for a creative argument here, so it pays to brainstorm.

• Are you more interested in the intensive effects of print on individual texts (i.e. how printing changed the format of the book and what this did to human perception, cognition, or identity)? Or are you more interested in the extensive effects of print (i.e. how many more texts could be printed and the social or political results of this rise in production and distribution)?

• How were matters handled prior to the printing press? To prove a change has taken place, it can be a good idea to consider how things operated before print.

• Do you want to consider the role of individual printers or the printing industry as a whole? You do not need to, but this could be a useful way to develop an argument.

On Writing • I recommend jotting down a provisional (“working”) thesis that you can

change, refine, or accentuate as you continue to research and write. A provisional thesis will keep your mind focused on a topic, without locking you into an argument.

• Outlines are excellent writing tool that allow you to organize your claims, ideas, evidence, and citations. You can also use an outline to quickly and easily communicate with me or your colleagues about your evolving paper.

• Regardless what you argue, you will need to substantiate your claims with evidence. Evidence can come in the form of historical examples, documents, or the arguments of scholars working in the field. You will come across plenty of potential evidence as you research your topic. Your job is A) to determine what evidence supports your argument and B) to explain how it does so.

• Some writers prove their arguments by focusing in depth by exploring a few examples in detail. Others prefer to substantiate their claims using a wider range of examples, with less attention paid to the details of each. Either approach can work. Decide which approach works best for you and commit to it.

• Your final argument should be focused and precise. Essay #1 writers tend to get into trouble when they start with overly broad claims or try to take on several different or even unrelated changes. Rather than attempting to present a comprehensive account of many different changes, you should instead concentrate on explaining one important way that printing radically affected human activities. There are plenty of possibilities, but choose one.

• Take care to avoid plagiarism: Whenever you rely on a source, cite it. This applies to direct quotes, paraphrases, or any idea taken from another author. Citing Wikipedia or lecture is not recommended, but even that is preferable to plagiarizing!

• Review the Grading Rubric provided for this assignment below to get a sense of how each aspect of this assignment is weighted in the overall grade. Apply your time and energy accordingly.

• The Student Learning Center Writing Program is a wonderful campus resource that all writers are encouraged to take advantage of. The SLC Writing Program is designed to provide individualized support to undergraduates of all writing experiences and disciplines. What’s more, the SLC Writing Program has expanded its online offerings to ensure all students will be able to access this wonderful service while studying remotely.

Concepts and terms introduced by Eisenstein Eisenstein Below you will find a list of concepts and terms Elizabeth Eisenstein uses to

explain the role of the printing press as an agent of change. Some are more broadly applicable than others. Depending on the complexity of your argument, you may focus on just one, or you may draw on several. Be sure to carefully define any terms you use, citing Eisenstein’s explanations and arguments as needed. If you would like to use another of Eisenstein’s terms or arguments not listed below, you are welcome to ask me about it.

standardization individualization personal publicity

typographical fixity the preservative powers of print

cross-fertilization decompartmentalization

dissemination (productivity) reorganization rationalization systematization

vernacularization a total rationalized view of the past

G ra

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R ub

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Category Criteria %

Specific Components

(50%)

Thesis statement clearly identifies and explains a change resulting from the introduction of printing

10%

Description of the historical agents involved and the context within which they operated.

5%

Definition and explanation of term(s) or concept(s) introduced and use by Elizabeth Eisenstein

10%

Body paragraphs providing and analyzing specific evidence 25%

Evidence (25%)

All claims are substantiated with appropriate evidence drawn from reliable sources (do you cite sources for your evidence?)

15%

Sources properly cited according to MLA or Chicago style and included in a Works Cited section following the paper (do you cite your sources properly?)

10%

Organization (15%)

Supporting points are presented in a logical sequence that proves the main argument. Examples and analysis are organized into coherent paragraphs of appropriate length. Paper is of an appropriate length and contains all required components.

15%

Style (10%) Writing is syntactically and grammatically correct. Paper is edited and proofread. Paper argument and explanations are easy to understand.

10%