Print and Class Consciousness

Marx might regard the content of the Bible as abstract Ideological fiction, but the influence of Gutenberg's invention--an unprecedented concrete homogenization of society--is independent of both the Roman Catholic interpretation of that content, and the Protestant decentralization of it that the invention enables.  Similar developments have been in evidence very recently--in the extension of that homogenization, via the extending of print technology through the 'World Wide Web', which includes the capacity of virtually instantaneous translations between different languages.  Likewise, lacking in standard Marxist analysis, is any consideration of the role that Print, as a prevailing Means of Communication, plays in the cultivation of Class Consciousness, i. e. of the generalized awareness of the specific sufferings of individual members of the Proletariat.