Weegy: One learned aurally and through pictures before the printing press. Gutenberg's invention allowed the common people to read the Bible for themselves for the first time. [ This weakened the authority of the Roman church. It gave people a motive to learn to read and schools were founded for teaching these young men. It became possible to disseminate ideas at a wider and farther range than ever before to more people. I'm not sure we've gained by television. Because pamphlets argued their points and that gave people time to reason through what was being said. Today we get mostly TV blips (I can hardly call the bytes any ore) of news, and the TV limits what we are made aware of. The other day on the morning news I heard a fairly long discussion of the full monty which is not news to my mind, who got voted off American Idol, even more on Anna Nicole, also not serious news, and if one wants to hear weather and traffic and other things that might affect the workweek you have to listen through all this other blither in between. Books gave us the time to hear thoughts and to think the thoughts through and to argue the thoughts we were hearing. They provided a new kind of forum open to more and more men, and not just the powerful. This held the aristocracy and even the church to greater account to the ordinary people- in effect- brought more and more things into the light. You could fight for your ideals through books and pamphlets, you could hear what the great minds were debating, you could hear what the RC church and the reformers were saying to each other, and most miraculously you could read the Word of God in your own language- a safeguard (not without it's own dangers) against an abusive use of Scripture against it's own people. ] (More)