Research Agenda

Centre CHoP’s key research questions are:

How has the advent of printing technologies influenced, structured and expressed human experience?
How can an enhanced comparative awareness of the changes wrought by printing direct our understanding of current transformations promoted by information technology?

These questions will be explored through a research and conference programme in the Comparative History of Print, driven by collaboration between diverse academic disciplines, and organised around five themes:

The Rhetoric of Communications Revolutions - deconstructing the often utopian language in which different eras have debated and legitimised new communication technologies, thereby evaluating claims made for recent technologies.
Print Revolutions in Global Perspective - charting the differing experiences of the transition from non-print to print media (e.g. in East Asian, European and colonised indigenous societies); cultural impact of shifts to new print technologies; and links between print and national identity.
Print, Knowledge and Power - exploring the role of print in managing access to information in different societies, in structuring political and religious cultures, and in opposing authority.
Media and Audience - comparing genres of print media (e.g. books, pictures, advertising, newspapers, websites) in different contexts, identifying how each targets, manipulates, and is appropriated by, audiences, communities and industries.
Digital Transformations – analysing the transformation of print culture studies due to new digital techniques. It will explore the use and development of digital catalogues, search engines, research resources, and analytical tools (including some developed by co-applicants), and promote new digital resources for purposes of curation, education and public engagement. It will also embed cutting-edge methodologies in research and teaching curricula.