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dependent on the very culture it is changing. 74 Eisenstein, however, recognized that
any historical change is contingent on multiple factors, with interplay back and
forth in diverse directions: “I regard printing as an agent, not the agent, let alone the
only agent, of change in Western Europe.” She does not support the idea of a
monocausal interpretation. Printing is one of many variables, but one with
important implications. 75 The crucial point here is that the spread of printed
materials, aside from the explicit messages contained within, can have an implicit
revolutionary influence in the sense of a momentous change, in contrast to any
seditious words within that might incite rebellion.
Most historians tend to reject the idea of a technology of communication
having an agency separate from the people it influences. Media ecologists, however,
present a more nuanced analysis. They see interrelationships between many cultural
and social agents interacting as part of a larger, overall, human ecosystem, with
multi-directional, multi-dimensional influences among people, organizations, and
structures. A new medium—such as print—would not exist until a human need for
the technology existed. People choose to adopt such technologies, but certainly can
never completely foresee all changes such new media can bring. Social structures of
power and control are important variables once print exists, as is the content on the
pages. However, the printed medium itself has some characteristics that are an
important and often undervalued part of the mix. The analogy of not being able to
see the forest for the trees is of some value here. Historians typically study
documents (the trees) looking for change over time reflected within the printed or
manuscript pages. While looking at the individual items, it is difficult to recognize
the overall influence of the medium itself (the forest), such as writing or printing.
As Eisenstein wrote, while a new medium such as print has a cataclysmic influence
74 Warner, Letters of the Republic, 5-9.
75 Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, 2 nd ed. (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2005), xiii, 317-333.