A Timely Article Worth Reading

I rarely write reviews on this blog but I encountered an article so apropos our current concerns, so well written, and so well researched that I must immediately recommend it. It appears in the December 17th issue from 2011 of The Economist. It is entitled, "How Luther Went Viral: Social Media in the 16th Century: Five Centuries Before Facebook and the Arab Spring, Social Media Helped Bring About the Reformation" (pp. 93-96), by an uncredited staff writer. It is a comparative analysis of a communication phenomenon of the Reformation with the social media phenomena of today's web technology. Back then it was efficient printing presses that could turn out mass-produced and affordable pamphlets on important current issues within 2 days of a person submitting the manuscript article. Martin Luther's pamphlets, written in a broad-based vernacular, were sold on the street corners and purchased by everyone from laborers, to artisans to burghers, and read aloud to those who were not literate in the public houses and in private homes. Earnest discussions occurred in response to these readings, and people realized they were not alone in their feelings of dissatisfaction. Mass consensus was built through what constituted a dynamic form of information technology for their day, and which some authorities (not surprisingly) tried to shut down -- but there were just too many printing presses in too many cities to stop it! This mass consensus mobilized firm resistance to corrupt and established power-blocs, and revolutionary human progress was the result. Here is the official link to the article, which is now freely accessible on the web: http://www.economist.com/node/21541719