The Ecology of Media: Typography

In the terms of culture, typography was a technology that had a fundamental impact in the American society of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This technology was able to establish a print print-orientated culture which characterised their ideas in a coherent and orderly manner. In order to grasp the content of a printed word, individuals were required to have the skills of organizing, analyzing and reasoning. The audiences that attended in the Lincoln-Douglas debates where competent to understand the discourse, they were accustomed to an oratory that was extracted from the written speeches. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, emphasis was placed on intelligence which promoted objectivity in the deliverance of logical discourse content (Postman, 51).

The purpose of typography served to connect individuals to their society. In order for individuals to become involved in their society, they had to read since it was the dominant form of acquiring information asides from oratory means (Postman, 63).
There were negative unintended functions, which would cause the decline of the typographic era, such as the introduction of the advertisements in newspapers. Neil Postman describes it as “a descent of the typographic mind, beginning, as it does, with reason and ending as it does with entertainment.” (Postman, 58) In other words, although the newspaper stemmed from the coherent print-culture it would eventually introduce an era of visuals such as advertisements that would dispense with the typographic mind.

In my opinion, typography is a technology that has influenced the way we extract concepts in a coherent manner. The very nature and structure of the written word demands that each line should be read in order, processed and analyzed just as you are doing right now. Although yes, this technology is outdated its nature still plays a fundamental role.

Postman, Niel. Amusing Ourselves to Death. New York: Penguin Books, 1985.