Chapter : 4. Print Culture and The Modern World
A New Reading Public
(a) A New Reading Public :
Access to books created a new culture of reading Earlier, reading was restricted to the elites. Common people lived in a world of oral culture. They heard sacred texts read out, ballads recited, and folk tales narrated. Now books could reach out to wider sections of people. If earlier there was a hearing public, now a reading public came into being.
The rates of literacy in most European countries were very low till the twentieth century. So the publishers had to keep in mind the wider reach of the printed work. So printers began publishing popular ballads and folk tales, and such books would be profusely illustrated with pictures. These were then sung and recited at gatherings in villages and in taverns in towns. Oral culture thus entered print and printed material was orally transmitted, and the hearing public and reading public became intermingled.
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