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The technology necessary to print a newspaper is a simple one-ink is pressed onto paper. The technology necessary to make the newspaper a mass medium is more complicated, and we will begin our brief history with a consideration of the growth of early printing technology. Many historians suggest that the Chinese first invented movable type and also discovered the process for making paper. We do know that Marco Polo described Chinese printing upon his return to Venice in 1295. Nevertheless, prior to the mid-fifteenth century most books and pamphlets available to Europeans were expensive and often inaccurate, handwritten manuscripts. The invention of the printing press and the introduction of movable type to the Western world is usually associated with a German, Johann Gutenberg. Little is known about Gutenberg except that he loved wine, was skilled in metallurgy, had miserable luck as a businessman and defaulted on several loans (lawsuits filed against Gutenberg provide the only real documentation for naming him father of the printing press). Gutenberg cast his type in soft metal rather than carving it in wood blocks. He borrowed an idea from winemaking and built a crude press that would force the ink onto the paper. Others copied Gutenberg's ideas, and presses spread from Germany throughout Europe during the last half of the fifteenth century. William Caxton, for example, introduced the printing press into Great Britain in 1487 and established a profitable London printing company that published the leading books of the day. Although book publishing was not considered to be a socially important force, Henry VIII recognized its potential in 1530 when he required all printers to obtain a royal approval before setting up shop. This notion of publishing "under authority" from the government would figure prominently in the future of the newspaper.

The idea of a mass-circulated newspaper followed the invention of printing. The bulk of early printed matter consisted of books and religious tracts. As more books went into print, more people were encouraged to learn how to read. As literacy grew, more people turned to education, and universities expanded. As education grew more people became curious about how they lived, how others lived, and how their government was run. Merchants and businesspeople realized that knowledge of economic conditions and commercial information from other towns and other countries could be beneficial to their own efforts. It wasn't long before publications sprang up across Europe to meet these needs. In Holland, printers began turning out corantos, or currents of news around 1620. Corantos spread to Britain where news about the Thirty Years War was in great demand. These early forerunners of the newspaper carried mainly foreign and commercial news. The corantos were published on and off for the next twenty years, finally expiring because of circulation and license fee problems. They were replaced by the diurnals, daily reports of domestic and local events usually concerned with the doings of the king and parliament. This period also saw the rise of the printing of religious books. The Bible and hymnals were widely distributed, as well as a large number of books detailing the controversy surrounding the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. .Along with an increase in book publishing came an increase in book suppression. Censorship was common.

In colonial times, the word "magazine" meant warehouse or depository, a place where various types of provisions were stored under one roof. The first magazines printed in America were patterned after this model; they were to be storehouses of varied literary materialsgathered from books, pamphlets, and newspapers and bound together under one cover. All these early magazines were aimed at a specialized audience - one thatwas educated, literate, and primarily urban. They contained a variety of articles dealing with the arts, practical science, and politics, and a list of authors who contributed to them would include most of the major poets, essayists and statesmen of the period. Their overall impact was to encourage literary and artistic expression and to unify the colonies during America's struggle for independence from England.

Benjamin Day was only 22 years old when he developed the idea of a newspaper for the masses. Day probably had no idea that he was starting a revolution in the communications industry when he launched his New York Sun in 1833. Nonetheless, journalism would be profoundly altered by his new approach. Several conditions had to exist before a mass press could come into existence: a printing press had to be invented that would produce copies quickly and cheaply; enough people had to know how to read in order to support such a press; a "mass audience" had to be present.

Day had seen others fail in their attempts to market a mass-appeal newspaper. Nonetheless, he forged ahead. Day's paper would be a daily and would sell for a penny. This was a significant price reduction when compared to the other New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia dailies, which went for six cents a copy. (The price of six cents was also typical for many weekly papers in other parts of the country. Since they came out less frequently, these papers were cheaper than the Sun on an annual basis. Thus although the penny press did not mark a drop in the overall price of American newspapers, it did signal a decrease in the price of urban dailies.) Local happenings, sex, violence, features, and human-interest stories would constitute his content. The first issue contained news of a suicide, police and crime items, shipping information, weddings, obituaries, and feature stories. Conspicuously absent were the stodgy political debates that still characterized many of the six-cent papers. Within six months the Sun achieved a circulation of approximately 8000 issues, far ahead of its nearest competitor. Day's gamble had paid off, and the penny press was launched.

As newspapers moved into the last half of the twentieth century, several trends in their content were apparent. Most obvious was a change in newspaper typography and layout, all withthe ultimate goal of making the modern newspaper easier to read. Photography and color were being used more liberally, and many papers showed a less to depart from the typical eight-column format that has been traditional, many papers were carrying more of what might be called "feature" stories. Sections entitled "Life," "Lifestyle," "Living," and "Leisure" were becoming more as papers blended more of this material with their traditional "hard" news.

Ex.1. Answer the following questions:

1. Who invented the printing press and introduce the movable type to the western world?

2. What is known about Johann Gutenberg?

3. Which benefits did books printing bring in life?

4. What did early forerunners of the newspaper carry and what were they replaced by?

5. What were first magazines like?

6. Which conditions were necessary for mass press to come into existence?

7. How much did the Day`s newspaper cost?

8. What was the Day`s paper content like?

9. How are modern newspapers altered?

Ex.2 Give Russian equivalents to these expressions:

Ex.3 Give English equivalents to these expressions:

Ex.4. Match the words with their definitions:

Ex.5. Complete the table with the appropriate forms of the words given: