The Origins of a Free Press in Prerevolutionary ... - Web Publishing

The introduction of printing had obvious implications for making the
government more visible to the public, but it also influenced more complex,
longer-term shifts of power. As economic historian Harold Innis noted, changes in
media affected changes in the monopoly of knowledge, and the structure of power
in a society. Laws that were written by hand were less elastic than their oral
predecessors, and supported the aristocracy. Once put on paper, they were even
more difficult to avoid or change without drastic power shifts, and they tended to
reinforce the current power structure. “Written codes not only implied uniformity,
justice, and a belief in laws but also an element of rigidity and necessity for
revolution and drastic change.” 90 Oral-based laws were adaptable to gradual change,
while written laws require more abrupt, revolutionary alterations. Innis suggested
that the rise of print and the transition from manuscript laws to printed laws made
lawyers more influential; politics took on a new importance, which eventually
strengthened the concept of representative government. The power of aristocracy
gave way to the power of elected assemblies, he suggests, aided by the power of
print. These conclusions were drawn from his careful analysis that the transition of
media, from clay tablets to parchment to paper, led to varying emphasis on time
and space, resulting in alterations in political structure. Paper, for example, led to
centralized administration over a wider geographic area, as it was lighter and could
travel farther, although it was not as permanent as stone or clay tablets. Parchment
and manuscript forms led to domination by the church rather than state, he
suggested. Printing led to use of the vernacular language instead of Latin, decreased
the authority of the written word, emphasized authority of the printed word, and
undermined church control. Any new medium influences and changes the
printed texts. While printed texts may also contain errors, there is at least a consistency in error,
rather than various manuscript versions leaving some laws out and having different errors.
90 Innis, Bias of Communication, 7.
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