ABSTRACT
This paper is focused on the brief history of print media, functions and the role of print media in a pluralistic society. We are able to know what a pluralistic society means and few countries we can find such feature. The final part of the paper is a conclusion and recommendation on why it's important to embrace a pluralistic society.
INTRODUCTION
It’s safe to say that the media, even life itself, would not be the same without the printed word. We read about our world through shared writings: newspapers, magazines, and records. We determine what we desire to buy from looking through printed headlines. Printed media have shaped the way we learn, think, and act in modern society.
The print media began from Ts’ai Lun, a Chinese official, assigned with the invention of paper in A.D. 105. Forty years later, Pi Sheng would invent the first movable type. It would call for literally hundreds of years later, in 1276, for printing to reach Europe in the shape of a paper mill in Italy, and another two hundred years until Johannes Gutenburg refined a method to efficiently print books and brochures on his Gutenburg press.
The print media has been of much benefit to the society rather pluralist or not, The society we live in has been so dependent on print media for information dissemination and communication. The benefits of print media cannot be overemphasized, amongst other mass media it has this lasting feature and simply afforded to almost everybody. Like the books, journals and other useful documents in the library used for sourcing and getting relevant information either for academic purpose or history proves, the Print media such as Newspaper and magazines are one of the key information sources available.
In a pluralist society, we have so many ethnic groups, religious cultures, traditions, beliefs and people from different diverse group. Pluralistic societies exist around the world, including the Nigeria, United States. Pluralism typically contains four components, which at the simplest level are diversity, tolerance, commitment and communication.
The simplicity of newspapers makes them ideal for readers on the go. Print media have been the first form of mass communication, since the first journals after the invention of typography by Gutenberg (in 1447) and monopolized the field until the mass production of the radio in 1920s. In the next 90 years, first the television and then the Internet have claimed their own share of the media audience. Despite the technological advancements which allow us wireless access to the Internet from pocket-size devices, the special attributes of print media still render them an important source of information, as the World Association of Newspapers suggests, pointing out that one billion people in the world read a newspaper every day.