- The periodical is arguably the first original genre created since Gutenburg’s press. It is described as combining old processes to form non-linear assemblages of text that are unified by a common program that is repeatedly printed. The periodical was defined by its public accessibility, periodicity, timeliness, and universality. Periodicity is used interchangeably with serial, where the publication was created in successive parts with organizational designations and intended to be continued.
- During the time of the periodical, there was a shift in reading practices. This shift involved the change from “intensive” to “extensive” reading, intensive being that where repetition and digestion of parts became the basic ways information was taken in. Extensive offered diversity, and the option of material. There were different overlapping genres that contributed to this shift, including weekly newspapers and dailies.
- The journal was a second genre, which reflected “specialization and popularization” and addressed specific readers and topics. They typically expressed the “derivative” including reviews and abstracts, in addition to the substantive. Journals became the main method of scholarly communication. However, the popularity of academic journals contributed to the rise of non-academic, everyday journals. These included philosophy-based journals and gentlemen’s magazines. The reprinting and imitation of these journals systematically created a middle class readership.
Question: How does the journal differ from the codex in
terms of readership? How was the reception of information by the public different
with the proliferation of the periodical? Did it influence social systems?
Comment: I think that it’s interesting that periodical “culture”
was the most profound in the fragmented and politically unstable Germany in the
seventeenth century. It was mentioned in the text that people attributed the
growth of the periodical with the fall of culture, and the cause of the French
Revolution. I wonder if periodical culture itself became the vehicle for German
political reform, or if the influence was the converse.
Periodicals and books have different purposes, and different contents. A periodical is informational, factual, and fluid whereas the information in a book is set in stone or unalterable. A periodical is not meant to be fully developed or finished in one production, it is continuous over time. The expense of a book was often limiting, and the disposability of a newspaper allowed its proliferation throughout the social classes. Books were used for reference and for developed arguments, whereas a newspaper often contained an article with a main idea. This contributes to it's disposability and cost. A book is an item meant for preservation and reflection.
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