The Coming Information Revolution and its Effect on the Printing Industry

We live in a time of constant change and innovation. Technological changes in communication have been speeding up in the last one hundred years at a rate unknown to man in the last five thousand years. After Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1450, print became the major source of communications throughout the world. Without this invention, the manifest destiny of the western world would have been completely impossible. As the industrial revolution unfolded at the turn of this century, another printing revolution began. Print adopted the methods of the revolution’s mass production. More print production increased readership and made democracy possible. The best citizens of any state are well informed citizens. Print has been the media of choice for the last five years for educating and entertaining the widest audience available. Now print stands at the threshold of a new era. The advent of computers, television and fiber optics has changed everything. Instantaneous communication all around the world is now possible. The contents of the encyclopedia can be transferred over fiber optic cable anywhere in the world in a split second. The threat that we will become a paperless society has been i heard for years. It has yet to come, and our paper use has only increased. To say this is a vain threat would be in denial of trends that suggest that the day may be at hand. This thesis explores the role that print will have in the future and whether the day will ever come that print will become as outmoded the handwritten script of Medieval times