Communication
Issue One
Despite various developments in printing during the 19th century which resulted to new machinery and many others advanced technology. The New York Times persisted in using the old methods of printing for various reasons. To begin with research experiments have demonstrated that the fonts, color and type of text used have an impact on the perception of people reading. New York also regarded their company as the biggest newspaper producing company in the world. To emphasize on this they built a very tall building which must have taken them a lot of investment during the 19th century, since the new techniques being developed required a lot of money it was difficult to invest in both the building and the machines without going bankrupt. Old is gold, some anonymous person stated and the New York times could have just been interested in maintaining its tradition.
The major development in the print industry was initiated by the development of a steam powered press, which allowed for substitution of the hand press’s flat platen with impression cylinder. This invention was done by Friedrich Koenig and enabled delivery of 1,100 sheets per hour. Augustus enhanced Friedrich work in the 1828 by multiplying the press capacity using four cylinders. During the 1800s presses with revolving impression cylinders were used by the American publishers at large. In the 19th century there was an intense exponential growth in all categories of manufacturing and printing. There was a sudden increasing demand on the printing technology and the demand for reading materials. Improvement in printing had existed since the 15th century, such as substitution of a lever for a screw and the introduction of iron construction much better advancement happened in the 19th century.
Issue Two
Text and Typography
Typography and type face do convey a lot of meaning, the color and the font used, the structure of the letter or the writing material. For example, the Serif typefaces is perceived to be more ancient and formal whereas Sans-serif typefaces – without the little feet on the end of each stroke of the letter tend to be informal. Errol Moris carried out an experiment with the main aim of finding out if the typeface a statement was hand written it had any influence on the readers’ willingness to agree. The answer for his research question was yes. A 250-year-old serif designed by Baskerville had more influence on the mind of many readers as compared to the computer modern, Helvitica, Comic Sans or Trebuchet. These results indicate that the typeface used on a text has a lot of effects on the credibility of the text.
The visual attributes of written and more so printing create some significant assumptions, impressions and common sense appeal which usually bias the reader. This explains the different between the roman time and print and their use in various fields. Contemporary topography has resulted in a series of development that trace its origin since the time of civilization and the ancient writings.
Most American philosophers regarded linguistic as important tools for communication, they had traditional linguistic branches such as semantics, syntactic and pragmatics. Some texts that are not formatted in this way would be bad to them. In 1846 Richard Hoe developed a type-revolving rotary press which enhanced the speed of the printers significantly. In 1850 10-cylinder Hoe which was the largest working press was developed. It could print 20,000 single sided sheet papers per hour. In 1865, Willium Bullock integrated the paper web and the rotary press for the first time. This enabled printing on both sides of a continuous roll. Hoe perfected this development in the same year and his web-fed perfecting press doubled on Bullock’s production.
In 1886 Linotype was invented by Ottmar Mergentthaler, which enabled automatic selection by use of machines. It produces a solid line of type. In 1887 Tolbert Lanston developed a monotype typesetter which could produce individual characters. The products of Monotype caster were more durable than the linotype because the letters could be reused. In 1893 the first multicolored rotary press magazine was constructed by Hoe and purchased by the comfort magazines. By the end of the 19th century Hoe presses were producing 100,000 folded and bound page per hour, they could produce gazettes and magazines which were colored.
Issue Three: Censorship, Regulation and Freedom of the Press
Throughout history censorship has followed free expressions of men and women. The evolution of censorship has been on free speech which challenged religion power in Europe, authority of postal services, newspaper establishment, public concern for morality and politics regarding wars. The modern censorship contends Universal Declaration of human rights. The history of censorship and regulation is much attached to the printing revolution.
Issue Four: Modern copyright law
The United States is under governance of copyright Act which was developed in 1976. The constitution of the United States grants congress the power to develop copyright law under Article 1 of section B in a clause which is referred to as the copyright clause. The copyright law history can be traced back in around 1700s. The law begins with some early privileges and the monopolies that was granted to books and printers. An Act of Encouragement of learning by vesting the copies of printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers was the first act in British, it is also referred to as the British statutes of Anne.
Issue five: Readers and Reading
Literacy refers to quality, usually associated with knowledge that an individual derives from activities that allows him or her to read and write. This therefore takes us to the issue about literacy against penmanship. Whereby, in penmanship an individual may end up succeeding in academic activities, but then is no guaranteed to succeed in other real life critical decision making process. On the other hand, literacy comes from the ability of an individual to use penmanship as a basis for making important decision in life. It therefore comes out that literacy is the higher form of penmanship since it directly involves interaction with the outside world. As the result, popularity of literacy comes out much clear in cases where there is a need for progress, potential, development both at the national and individual scale. Everybody requires literacy to be successful in the contemporary world.
Consequently, there is need for exploring the different categories of literacies because each of them have diversified purposes. For instance, commercial or occupational literacy involves the literacy that helps an individual to pursue certain profession. In which case, the literacy is essential to allow the individual to pursue the important elements associated with the given profession. Another kind of literacy includes religious literacy, administrative literacy.
