The research work, which has been carried out, is primarily aimed at analyzing the history of press media and its development in Western civilization, in particular in the state of Indiana. It is of crucial importance for us to focus on such aspects as the obstacles, which they have surmounted in the course of their development, like for instance, economic, social, and even religion. In addition to that, we need to discuss the reasons for the longevity of printed media.
The twentieth century has witnessed a rapid development of digital technologies, namely, we should speak about World Wide Web. At first glance, it may seem that newspapers are bound to be substituted by these new means of communication, yet even despite this fact they still enjoy popularity and many people give preference to them. Thus, when we have outlined the major tasks that should be fulfilled, we should trace the origins of publishing in Western Europe and subsequently in the United States.
It should be pointed out that for a very long time, only a very limited circle of people was literate and had any access to the written sources of information. These people were monks. They could read the masterpieces of world literature, mostly in Latin. As regards, the rest of the population, it would not be an exaggeration for us to state that they could not even afford books, because at that moment they were extremely expensive. Thus, people were virtually subdivided into two large groups, the shepherds (or clerics to be more exact), and sheep (illiterate part of the population).
Yet the situation underwent a drastic change in the thirteenth century when Gutenberg invented his famous typewriting machine. To some extent, it was a revolution in the world of publishing. The consequences of this event cannot be underestimated. The thing was that print media became much more available and the mass could procure them. In some way, the first Bible, published by Gutenberg is the breakthrough in the history of printed media, and at that moment, its growth could no longer be stopped.
Speaking about the factors, which boosted the development of printing, we cannot overlook such phenomena as Reformation Movement and such person as Martin Luther. It should be borne in mind that this person insisted that Holy Scripture should have been translated from Latin into vernacular languages, such as English, French, German, etc.
Now, we may speak about the first hurdle, which print media had to encounter, namely, the resistance of the Catholic Church, still trying to maintain their superiority in this sphere. According to them, the availability of books, newspapers, and magazines, would have deprived them of their control over the minds of the then Western society. For a considerable amount of time, the clerics tried to control the content of the printed media. Everything that could possibly undermine the foundations of their power was labeled as heresy, every book, which was regarded as potentially dangerous, was either burnt or consigned to oblivion.
This is arguably one of the major difficulties, which printed media have ever encountered. It is rather difficult to determine the exact timelines, but we may say that the control of the church over publishing weakened only in the eighteenth century. In this particular, we should mention the epoch of Enlightenment and most famous representatives, such as Voltaire, Diderot, and Jean Jacque Rousseau, who advocated the freedom of speech and other liberal values.
But now we need to discuss another stumbling block, the influence of the government, which is always inclined to shape the content of the printed media. Newspapers and magazines are constantly fighting against political censure and under some circumstances, they have to make compromises with the ruling classes. As regards the United States, we can say that this country attempted to implement liberal principles of Enlightenment into practice. Therefore, printed media in this country achieved a certain degree of independence. Moreover, we may even say that it became the so-called fourth power, which means that it could also influence the policy of the government.
However, we need to acknowledge that even in the United States of America, the printed media was greatly dependent on the political system. For instance, we may mention the Civil War and how many newspapers acted during this conflict. In many southern States, mass media were supporting the idea of slavery. This war was conducted not only on the battlefields but on the pages of books and newspapers as well.
If we try to narrow the scope of our research, we may choose one particular state, for example, such a city as Fort Wayne in the state of Indiana. On the whole, this place has a long-standing tradition of printed media. Perhaps, the oldest newspaper in this city is The News-Sentinel, which was first released in 1833. Naturally, there are some other publications, namely The Journal Gazette, that were established in 1863. This list can be easily continued, but there is no need to enumerate all of them in this essay. However, we should mention that now there are approximately sixteen print media bodies in Fort Wayne.
We may observe a very curious paradox: although there are more than one hundred digital media companies, there is still strong demand for these newspapers. The question arises why people are still inclined to buy journals magazines if they can learn this information through the Internet. To explain this phenomenon, we should discuss the attitude of the public towards various types of media. Probably, the underlying cause is that the overwhelming majority of people consider newspapers as the most reliable source of information, whereas they look at Web-based media with some apprehension. The major problem with Internet resources is that the newspro
Nevertheless, one cannot claim that nowadays newspapers in the United States, and specifically in Fort Wayne, are flourishing. On the contrary, many experts claim that in the recent five years printed media have slipped into significant decline.