In a moment when many of us in the States are feeling the pull towards political and social activism I’ve been thinking a bit about the role of printed matter. Physical print may be much more resistant to corporate scrutiny than online publishing.
I wonder if physical self-publication, in the form of zines, books, artist books, broadsides, etc., can escape some if not most of the scrutiny of surveillance, shadow banning, AI use, algorithmic assessment and erasure that much of online self-publishing through social media and other platforms must endure and combat. I’m thinking of the recent ban of TikTok, motivated by political aims and corporate pressure that effectively removed a huge number of people’s voices and their web of connections in an instant. The internet is a beautiful beast, a churning of information, reinterpreted information, misinformation and a fascinating forum, but more and more our interest and attention is being harnessed for its buying power. Social media, though in many ways an incredible tool for sharing information, is implicated in the corporate and political interests of the platform’s owners and content is available for their use and data mining.
Physical books are exempt from this particular use and scrutiny. Printed matter finds itself in a resistive position, able to work outside the layers of corporate censorship, tides of popular opinion and law. This of course is not new. Late to the game, the Western world made use of movable type to produce books with the production of the Gutenberg Bible around 1450, and hot on the heels of its publication the process was commercialized around 1470 as the first publishing houses in Europe began popping up. With the commercialization of publication, the ability to self-publish became defined in a new way, as in opposition or alternative to the considerations of business.
The longevity of printed and paper matter over digitally published matter is not certain, but it seems to be more resistant to the whims of a platform. Physical content must be laboriously and physically removed, burned or purged to be eliminated from the corporate or government structure (as is happening in public and school libraries). Though there are many alternatives to posting on major social media platforms with more ethical terms of use or even coding and publishing on your own website, the pamphlet, broadside and zine remain platforms for all voices with a definable impact within a community. There is a long history of self-publication as activism, to avoid editorial procedure, publication rejection or just for fun. The reach of printed matter may be small, but the power of localized voices to build community and efforts to organize offline and under the radar should not be underestimated.
Sara Luz Jensen is an Instructor for the Book Arts Program, University of Utah. Under the small-press imprint Fingertips Press, she produces books and printed matter, many of which are in collaboration with writers and artists. Sara Luz’s work is held in public and private collections and is exhibited nationally.
