Hanson, Mass Communication 8e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
Lecture Notes
Chapter 4: Books: The Birth of the Mass Media
Learning Objectives
1-1 Describe three of the earliest forms of writing that predated the invention of the book
1-2 Identify two massive cultural changes that took place after the inventions of the type mold
and printing press
1-4 Describe the reasons why tension exists between “popular” books and “great” books
1-5 Describe how censoring attempts of challenged books are handled in the United States
compared to how they are handled in other countries, such as Iran
Annotated Chapter Outline
I. Books and Mass Communication
A. Books were the original medium of mass communication
B. Writing is thought to have originated around 3500 BC in the Middle East
C. Pictograph: earliest form of writing which consisted of pictures of objects painted on
rock walls
D. Ideograph: an abstract symbol that stands for an object or an idea
E. Emojis: small icons that stand for emotions or ideas
H. Papyrus: a primitive form of paper made from the papyrus reed
I. Parchment: made from the skin of goats or sheep
J. Paper: made from cotton rags or wood pulp
K. A Demand for Books
i. Scriptoria: copying rooms
ii. The increase in demand for books led to the shift in production to licensed
publishers
iii. The Development of the Printing Press
a. Printing was invented in China toward the end of the second century
b. Both the Chinese and Koreans developed the idea of movable type
II. Books and Mass Culture
A. Cultural changes from the printing press
i. Standardization of books
ii. Increased availability of books and types of books
iii. Established rules for English (word usage, grammar, punctuation, and spelling)
B. Oxford English Dictionary (OED)
i. Goal to find the origin of every word in the English language
C. Spreading Ideas Through Publishing
i. Bay Psalm Book: a book that signaled the start of printing in North America
D. The Development of Large-Scale, Mass-Produced Books
i. Serial novels: published in installments
ii. Dime novels: first paperbacks that were heroic action stories that generally
III. Buying and Selling Books
A. Publishers
i. Publishers: the companies that buy manuscripts from authors and turn them into
books
ii. Increasingly limited range of ownership in the publishing business
iii. Consolidation history of Random House
iv. The World’s Top Publishers
v. University and Small Presses
a. University and small presses: issue a limited number of books and may
vi. Small Publishers
a. Cottage Door Press
vii. The Government Publishing Office
a. The federal government is one of the nation’s biggest publishers
B. Writers
ii. Proofs: copy of the ready-to-print pages
iii. Most writers make very little money
C. Booksellers
i. Ingram Book Company: largest book wholesaler in the U.S.
ii. Barnes & Noble
iii. Effect of Amazon on bookstores
iv. Growth of indie bookstores
a. Sense of community
v. Books and the Long Tail
a. Launched by the internet
b. Amazon’s online bookstore
a. Availability
b. Tracking customers’ interests
c. Tailored recommendations
d. Marketing partnerships
vi. The Textbook Business
a. Differ because people who select the books are not the same as the end
users
a. Leads to financial concerns
b. Period of change for textbook companies due to textbook rentals
c. Major complaint: one-time purchase access codes
d. Inclusive access: programs where schools license all the assigned books
electronically from a major publisher and make them available to
students at either a discounted rate or no additional charge
a. Downsides
IV. Books and Culture
A. Tension between blockbuster books and so-called important books
B. Domestic novels: told of women who overcame tremendous problems through their
Christian strength, virtue, and faith, ending up in prosperous middle-class homes
v. Period of growth for libraries in the nineteenth century
vi. Important functions today
V. Books and Censorship
A. Wherever there are books, there are people who will want to ban or control them for
one reason or another
B. In America, most book censorship efforts are local rather than national in scope
C. ALA’s tracking of most-challenged books
D. Censorship in other countries and cultures
i. Salman Rushdie and The Satanic Verses
E. The Future of Books
i. Digital media and the internet are bringing big changes to the media business,
iii. Increase in audiobooks
iv. From Clay, to Paper, to Electronic
a. Pentagon Papers: a top-secret forty-seven-volume report
commissioned by the Secretary of Defense to explain how the United
v. Print on Demand
a. Print on demand: in which the physical book is not printed until it is