Early Modern Print Culture: Assessing the Models

While 'print culture' and the notion of an 'age of print' have become accepted terms in media theory and early modern historical and literary scholarship, there is much disagreement over what they signify and whether they actually explain much. The present article looks at a number of ways in which the terms have been conceptualised over the last 30 years in each of the disciplinary fields mentioned and tries to assess both the usefulness and the limitations of the models proposed by such scholars as Ong, Eisenstein, Chartier, McKenzie, and Johns. Particular attention is given to print culture as a 'noetic' conception; to its use as a way of describing the social relationships of production and consumption; and to the place of the print media within the wider early modern informational economy. New ways of modelling the second and third of these categories are proposed.