The Print Parenthesis (or is it an Ellipsis?)

As I approach the 4th anniversary of my announcement to retire from the printing industry, I stumbled across an interesting book, The Gutenberg Parenthesis by Jeff Jarvis. In addition to Jesus Christ, one of my all-time heroes is Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1398-1468), the German inventor of the movable-type printing press who printed the first Bible in 1454. My curiosity about the intersection of traditional production and digital distribution remains strong so the subtitle of Jarvis’ book, The Age of Print and Its Lessons for the Age of The Internet, naturally intrigued me.?

The book suggests a metaphor that the parenthesis of Gutenberg’s era was an exception in the course of history. Like a parenthesis, the time inside of the print era of the last 550 years and its significant changes, is characterized by containment. However, I saw many changes during my career (inside the parenthesis from my first jr. high shop class until my retirement in May 2020) but suggest we are at an “ellipsis,” in these industries rather than bracketed by the parenthesis. Stick with me as I explain.?

Jarvis writes the Parenthesis opened halfway through the fifteenth century with Gutenberg, his Bible, and the development of printing. Prior to that, stories and information was passed along mouth-to-mouth by family, friend, traveler, and town crier. News, rumor, verse, and song would evolve but knowledge and memory were collective, collaborative, and often performed using rhyme and lyric. There was little sense of authorship or ownership of the information. The business of preserving and distributing tales and knowledge of the ancients was expensive but simple: one manuscript, one scribe, one patron, and a lot of time. But with the printed book, this information was bound in covers with a beginning and an end. Our cognition of the world became linear. The text became fixed, unchangeable, and permanent. It became identical, consistent, and no longer subject to the edits, amendments, whims, and errors of scribes. Things in print gained trust. Print gave birth to the author as an authority to challenge institutions and introduce new ideas about religion, education, childhood, the public, and the nations. Two centuries later, the industry found its economic foundation with the enactment of copyright law in England in 1710. Writing, text, and creativity were seen as products and property: a commodity called “content” that fills a container, the book. Society no longer conversed about content but could consume it silently by reading and individually rather than in a group.

According to Jarvis, now comes the internet and the closing of the Parenthesis. Today, as the world moves past the Gutenberg era, knowledge is again passed along freely, but link by link, click by click, remixed, and remade along the way. The value of authorship and ownership of content is diminished and we find ourselves in legal and political battles over the enforcement of copyright and there is a plethora of plagiarism. We also no longer communicate just in text but now in images, moving images, and modern ideograms: memes and emojis. Our memories are not trapped in pages but held in a figurative cloud that is material but distant, just a search engine away. Our world is no longer contained in the dimensions of the line but “a constellation of clicks and links, search and social, data and algorithms, erupting occasionally in epistemological warfare.” (page 4) . Jarvis believes that print is not going to die, but we can learn much as we leave the era of print by studying its history as we make the transition for the digital future.?

I differ with Jarvis in that I believe that the printing and publishing industries are not outside the brackets of Gutenberg’s parenthesis but at an ellipsis; a point of continuance rather than a period of containment, an unfinished thought or pause, instead of a remark or passage that departs from the theme of a discourse.?

Wikipedia defines an ellipsis "as a series of three periods (also known informally as dot dot dot) each separated by a non-breaking space that indicates an intentional omission of a word, sentence, or whole section from a text without altering its original meaning." Depending on the context and placement in a sentence, the ellipsis can also indicate an "unfinished thought, a leading statement, a slight pause, an echoing voice, or a nervous or awkward silence." Merriam-Webster defines it as "the omission of one or more words that are understood but that must be supplied to make a construction grammatically complete: a sudden leap from one topic to another."

So I believe the printing and publishing industry is at a slight pause; maybe even an awkward, unfinished moment of adjustment. Like the Gutenberg era, the changes are not contained over over, but will continue. Maybe even leap to another phase. ??

I still loved my career as evidenced by my post, Dear Printing after retiring. I casually follow the news about both printing and publishing; though no longer as an employee or investor, but as a fan. I see significant change continuing in the creation and distribution of content, authorship, consolidation of production assets and printing companies, major technology advancements, and well-known suppliers offering expanded services. It’s an awkward moment of disruption for producers and consumers of media and communications.?

I’ve even made changes in how I consume and create content. I recently changed to the digital edition of my local newspaper (mainly to reduce the plastic bags used even on dry days). I use our local library more (to better manage my reading expenses). I? write a blog called GodBuddies that led to a book, Get Out of Your Man Cave: The Crisis of Male Friendship (also available as an ebook) about my struggle with workaholism and how deeper, more authentic friends helped me early through it (a period marked by nested parens within my career). So yes, I still have ink in my blood and wrote Remembering a Proud Ink Guy about my dad who passed away last year. But we are in a period of significant change that will continue, much like an ellipsis, rather than be contained like the parenthesis.?

Jarvis takes readers on a journey through the 500-year period from the introduction of the printing press to the advent of the internet and today’s digital age. I won’t go through the entire history. He masterfully and scholarly describes how the advances in print and authorship disrupted every facet of life-- political, economic, educational, religious, cultural, and social. He thoughtfully writes that studying the challenges and opportunities the world faced during Gutenberg’s era can help us learn how to navigate the technological changes of today. Again, I was intrigued.?

During my career, I experienced many changes. From learning in shop class about a California Job Case (drawer that holds the hundreds of individual pieces of metal type used in our language) to letterpress printing (I actually ran a Heidelberg Windmill Platen Press in the 80s) to photocomposition of type for exacto-knives for cut & paste artwork to desktop publishing. I learned about web-offset printing and the early stages of electronic publishing while working at a travel publisher that began with early versions of electronic content.?

The dawn of the consumer Internet made distributing content easier. Publishers and catalogers began to distribute a PDF or digital version as a download from their website or as an attachment to an email to their customers. Even the printer I worked for offered the conversion of print-ready files into digital magazines, catalogs, and books. As the functionality of e-readers and tablet computers improved, creators became more creative with their content. Reader engagement could now be measured. Digital distribution was now measured. Given my background and these shifts, I was known to say, “The good thing about digital magazines is that they are measurable. The bad thing is that they are measurable!”?

Publishers could no longer state they had “2.3 readers per copy” or boast they had a circulation base of 625,000 paid subscribers to sell advertising space. Advertisers requested the details of engagement with their ads, and the ad-to-edit ratios in magazines flipped. Many publishers chose to give away digital distribution as a bonus tied to their print editions. The Internet enabled free and unreliable content that was rushed onto the web which led to the proliferation of “fake news” from less-than-trusted sources. Two major revenue sources began to decline. Sales of books (typically bought at a local bookstore) were now online. Revenue of magazines (either as a paid subscription or purchased from a newsstand) and advertising (often tied to specific content or subscriber demographics) dropped significantly. Many publishers and catalogers folded or merged.?

The production side also began to consolidate as revenue and profit declined. Too many printers chasing fewer pages created by a shrinking base of customers caused a drop in contract pricing to less-than-profitable levels. This imbalance in the supply-demand curve caused many printers to shut down presses and binding lines, or even to close entire plants. Paper mills controlled their production to stabilize prices. Small printers were gobbled up by larger companies. The demand for larger quantity print was dropping as distribution counts became lower. Even the most recognizable companies began to change.?

Recently, the company from which I retired was recently sold again. LSC Communications, a result of the 2016 split of $11.7 billion RR Donnelley into 3 publicly traded companies, was acquired by CJK Group, Inc. The spin-off of LSC was part of a trend to “maximize shareholder value” by creating smaller, more focused companies. In theory, the parts are more valuable than the whole, Partly driven by activist investors, companies such as AT&T, Xerox & Hewlett Packard, and Kellogg have split apart. Only history and the combined stock prices of these spin-offs will tell whether these were successful or not.?

Well-know, traditional printers also began evolving their offerings. For instance, Quad/Graphics rebranded itself as an integrated marketing solutions partner that leverages its data-driven print expertise and creative solutions. Mid-size consolidators are gobbling up complimentary services. Smaller, surviving printers sharpened their focus on digital print, packaging, web-based solutions, and new technology augmented reality. The economic foundation of the entire communications industry is being disrupted.

Think about how Kodak first explored digital photography but didn't want to cannibalize their film business, Amazon first disrupted book sales, and then how we shop for everything. Uber and Lyft impacted the ride-sharing business. NetFlix virtually eliminated videotapes and DVDs. Social media makes us less social and more isolated. All of these examples are changes that are not contained but continue. Like an ellipsis.?

Back to Jarvis and his book. The author asks us to consider the internet not as a container for content but as a conduit for conversation. A conduit about opportunities to serve identity, individuality, and community over containing the masses.?

Maybe all of this change will help us return to conversations, spreading our knowledge and sharing information face-to-face. We might be starting a new era or an old era will evolve. But all of us play a role as we… (insert your continuation here or as a Comment below; not to close the parenthesis, but as a conduit to continue this discussion before you move to the next link, email, or blog!)