[ecrea] ICA panel - Shortage of Paper and its Impact on Print in the Pre-Industrial Era: Historical Parallels with the Spectrum Scarcity Debate

Call for Papers – Panel Proposal – ICA London, 2013

Shortage of Paper and its Impact on Print in the Pre-Industrial Era: 
Historical Parallels with the Spectrum Scarcity Debate

Since the 1920s, regulatory policies of most Western societies have 
evolved from the premise that “spectrum scarcity” makes broadcast 
communication diametrically different from print technologies. Yet, up 
until its mass production in the industrial mills of the late ninetieth 
century, paper used to be a scarce commodity itself. In the first four 
centuries after Gutenberg’s invention, it was produced mainly from old 
rags and manufactured in limited quantities. Consequently, the genuinely 
occurring, but also perceived or at some point even artificially created 
shortage of paper shaped the print period in a manner that has many 
historical parallels with limitations peculiar to the electronic 
spectrum. This panel suggests that the endemic shortage of paper in the 
early period of print could be indeed interpreted as the precursor of 
the “spectrum scarcity” debate.

We would like to invite communication historians to join a panel 
proposal for the upcoming ICA 2013 conference in London (June 17-21).

Potential topics of papers may include - but are not limited – the 
following:

- the regulation of paper production in the early period of print: 
15th-17th century (we already have a proposal on regulatory policies of 
rag sales and paper production in Renaissance Italy);
- the 17th-18th century early modern newspaper and indirect political 
censorship (e.g., series of Stamp Acts by which the British Crown 
indirectly attempted to regulate print at home and in its colonies / In 
the 1830s, during his visit in the United State, Scottish journalist 
Thomas Hamilton defended the tax as an important regulatory measure: 
“Remove the stamp duty, and the consequence will inevitably be, that 
there will be two sets of newspapers, one for the rich and educated, the 
other for the poor and ignorant”);
- the challenges for paper production in the early 19th century mass 
circulation era (e.g., the 1830s Penny Press);
- the press barons of the late 19th century and the industrial mass 
production of paper (we already have a paper proposal on McCormick’s 
Chicago Tribune newspaper family and its own ways to secure the supplies 
of paper).

If you would like to join the panel, please send your paper proposal 
ASAP to:

Juraj Kittler – St. Lawrence University: (jkittler /at/ stlawu.edu)
Michael Stamm – Michigan State University: (stamm /at/ msu.edu)


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Juraj Kittler
Assistant Professor
Performance and Communication Arts & English
St. Lawrence University
23 Romoda Drive
Canton, NY 13617
U.S.A.

Office Phone: 315-229-5119
Cell Phone: 717-350-4804
E-mails: (jkittler /at/ stlawu.edu); (betuskak /at/ yahoo.com)

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