The cultural consequences of printing and the internet

The primary value of Elizabeth Eisenstein's work is in understanding the cultural consequences of the printing press in late medieval and early modern Europe. But we also found her work useful for thinking about policy related to the Internet in today's world. Policy making, at its best, is more art than science, and policy making under conditions of serious uncertainty is doubly diffi cult. Such is the situation in policy making for the Internet. Not only is Internet use a new and rapidly changing social phenomenon, but the technology underlying the Internet itself is changing at the speed of Moore's Law, with transmission speed and storage capacity doubling every twelve to eighteen months. Since one of the most reliable approaches to thinking about policy is to look for guidance in historical instances with similarities to the current situation, we turned to Eisenstein's seminal work. Several observers have seen useful parallels between the Internet and more modern technologies, such as radio, the telephone, television, and the VCR. James Dewar, co-author of this essay, has argued, however, that a better set of parallels is between the Internet and the printing press and his argument relies heavily on Eisenstein's work. Her work contributed most signifi cantly to the literature on the impact of the printing press by implicating it in three of the most far- reaching changes of European history - the Reformation, the Renaissance, and the Scientifi c Revolution. If the Internet were to have anywhere near the impact the printing press has had, its importance would beggar that of its more modern parallels, and devising appropriate policies - even early on - could become crucial. With that in mind, a presentation of the parallels between the Internet and the printing press makes the case for the printing press as a guide to thinking about policy for the Internet and highlights the importance of Eisenstein's work in that thinking. Among the important parallels between the printing press in early modern Europe and the Internet, three broad areas are worth discussing in detail: the technological breakthroughs that fueled the impact of the printing press and that is fueling the growing impact of the Internet; the several ways in which printing and Internet technologies enable important changes in the way that people deal with knowledge; and the unintended consequences of each of the technologies.