16 | Mass Media and Historical Change
an increasingly commercial book market flourished in China, particularly
in the middle of the sixteenth century. Chinese books covered quite a broad
range of topics, from religious matters to guidebooks and light fiction (Chow
2004: 245). The books’ contents, however, also demonstrated that printing
did not automatically cultivate the practice of individual authorship. In many
cases, various texts were combined; others were re-issued under different titles
(Brokaw 2005: 20).
Fourthly, religion contributed greatly to the upsurge of print media
in Asia. Large collections of Buddhist texts and numerous Buddhist book
illustrations substantiate the fact that the Buddhist faith fuelled the heyday
of printing in Korea until the end of the Goryeo Dynasty (918–1392) and
constituted printing as a religious act. Neo-Confucian writings, which later
became the focus of the printing business, aspired to a certain degree a
text standardisation such as existed in Western Europe. Accordingly, the
oldest surviving book worldwide is a collection of Buddhist lore written
by a Zen master, most commonly referred to as Jikji and printed in 1377
using metal type. Similarly, in the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910), print-
ing served the promotion and enforcement of Neo-Confucianism as the
new state doctrine. Illustrated prints in particular were intended to propa-
gate the Confucian canon of values nationwide from the fifteenth century
onwards. However, printing was not solely utilised for the propagation of
religions and modes of behaviour. The fact that the mere act of duplicat-
ing religious writings was considered a step on the way to salvation served
to further increase the immense circulation figures. This was particularly
evident in Japan in the 760s, when the empress had approximately one
million holy scriptures printed for pagodas (Dhâranî) (Giesecke 2007: 428;
Yukawa 2010: 246).
The Asian development also proved that it was by no means inevitable
that, even after its invention, movable type printing should become the dom-
inant system in the field of media technology. Despite its early breakthrough,
it played only a marginal role in China until the nineteenth century, whilst
at the same time in Korea movable type printing coexisted with the method
of xylography (‘woodcut’). High-circulation books continued to be manufac-
tured using woodcut, whereas movable types were intended for standardised
texts, special editions, or anything produced on a smaller scale. In the 1590s,
two events were responsible for bringing this technique to Japan also. At the
same time that the Japanese were at war with Korea, where they looted print-
ing equipment and abducted printers, a Portuguese missionary introduced
them to the Western printing practice. The latter was subsequently prevalent
in Japan for a brief period, but its popularity soon diminished (Yukawa 2010:
282). It was only in the 1860s that movable type printing asserted itself after
the encounter with the Western world.