Literacy IS Power

We actually discussed this topic in my Journalism 1 class on September 5th 2014. The topic was actually the first ways of mass communication: books. I originally had never really thought about where or how books had gotten its start. I always thought that it started out as telling stories and that was passed down as a tradition until somebody had actually thought to write it down; but what's wrong with that idea (or what I had never thought about) was that telling stories and passing them down is like a big game of telephone that lasts for hundreds of years (and we all know that in games of telephone things always tend to get "messed up" depending on our interpretataion of them).
 We learned in class that the first ever movable type printing press ever created was by Bi Sheng in China 1040 CE. This led to the first way to mass-produce books.

So you know those villians in the movies or even in books? I've noticed that usually one of the first things they do is take away books and newspapers and such; now why is that? Well, one of the most important things that come along with books that are available to everyone is increased literacy but also with it comes decreased power from powerful officials in the world. Taking away books from a place has this increasing ripple effect of negative events. First comes a low literacy rate as more new generations come along, then comes no public education (without reading you can't learn really anything else, you read in every subject you learn, no matter what it is.), a high poverty rate, low tchnology advances, and so on. And there's especially no one who has a high enough literacy rate to stop them from gaining more power. Without literacy, someone can tell us that in the Constitution that we are not allowed to have a freedom to speech and we can't disagree with them because no one can read it so we just believe them; but haven't you noticed those superheroes in comics or books have some type of literacy rate that is higher than those around them? Look at Superman a.k.a. Clark Kent he works at a metropolian newspaper place called The Daily Planet (high literacy rate to be a journalist); Spiderman a.k.a Peter Parker works at The Daily Bugle (newspaper) as a photographer (again high literacy rate); Harry Potter goes to Hogwarts which is a boarding school (high literacy rate; Katniss Everdeen even has somewhat of a literacy rate even in a dystopian future where no one has education, she can make medicine and she has a book on each kinds of plants and their purpose. Now these are just a few examples of hereos who have "saved the world" that just "happen" to have somewhat of a literacy rate. So in conclusion, I believe that Literacy IS Power and without it, well then I guess we could figure out what coud happen.