Scientific Reassessment of the Publishing Evolution: А Media-Archaeological Approach to Prospective Studies of Book as Medium

Modern media are characterized by extraordinary diversification and derivatisation. Multimodality has become central to all factors of the communication process – sources, codes, messages, channels and networks, intermediaries and agents, as well as end recipients. The most serious collisions occur in the field of publishing and books. Object of the research: A formal reason for this article is the 550th anniversary from the death of Johannes Gutenberg (ca. 1400–1468) used to re–examine and re–define the book as the oldest and, at the same time, most promising media in the world of publishing. Purpose of the research: To revise the periodisation of the publishing evolution outside the four phases of the 560–year biography of the print format of the book: incunables or early– printed books, post– incunables or first–printed books, old–printed books, and new–printed books or contemporary printed books. Methodology/approach: The archaeological approach to the study of media reveals larger–scale reasoning behind the evolution of the book as a medium: Pre–Gutenberg, Gutenberg and Post–Gutenberg book. Results: Each of the three phases is governed by five principles that also pre–empt the future of the print medium in the 21st century: the principle of bureaucracy, the principle of antagonism, the principle of fanaticism, the principle of emancipation and the principle of “form follows function”. The perspective of media archaeology helps to correct the historical place and the evolutionary stance of the inventions pertaining to the Gutenberg Galaxy – the print medium, the printing press, the printed book, and paper as a printing resource. Implications: The conclusions may prove important for outlining the technological and ideological patterns affecting the invention and decline not only of the printed book but of every publication format before and after Gutenberg.