People have always had an innate desire to know what’s going on around them. As Professor Klein worded it in class, “News doesn’t like a vacuum.” When their need for information is not fulfilled, people become very nervous and frightened.
Take the Dark Ages, for example. Literacy was much lower in this time period than during the flourishing of the Roman Empire. The only way people received their information was through the Church, which not only delivered the news, but served as a gatekeeper to control the flow of news. Students learned how to read with the text of the Bible. With only one source of information, and a natural tendency to feel vulnerable without news, the Church was able to exploit this and hold power over its subjects.
Bibles during this time often contained illustrations for citizens who could not read. This allowed Christianity to reach a much broader audience. Unfortunately, only the wealthy could afford to send their children to school, which contributed to low literacy rates and the need for news to be disseminated by a higher source.
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