How Do We Capitalize on this Gutenberg Moment?
By Ricky DiMartino

How Do We Capitalize on this Gutenberg Moment?

By Ricky DiMartino

You’ve probably all heard the stat by now. An estimated 70% percent of the world’s population now have access to a smartphone. You’ve also likely heard that the advent of the smartphone initiated something of a “Gutenberg moment.” For those not familiar, Johannes Gutenberg was a German printer and publisher who lived in the mid-1400s. He was not the first to invent moveable-type printing presses. He was not the first to provide access to the Bible in the language of the common person. But he was the first to put the two together.

A moveable-type printing press similar to the one Gutenberg would have used. 
Une presse à imprimer à caractères mobiles semblable à celle utilisée par Gutenberg.

This idea, to use machinery to mass produce the Bible and other materials in the common vernacular, revolutionized the way people produced and shared knowledge, particularly the knowledge of God. The Word of God, combined with massive progress in literacy, was now able to reach every home. Europe was never the same. The world was never the same. Even secular historians have named the Gutenberg printing press as the greatest invention of the last millennium.

That brings us to today. Many consider the ubiquitous smartphone as the next machine to revolutionize the way people produce and share knowledge, particularly the knowledge of God. But there is a unique factor to this Gutenberg moment: Literacy is no prerequisite. The Gutenberg moment for the estimated 5.5 billion oral communicators on planet Earth is upon us. The question now for those of us in the Bible translation movement is: What is the best way to leverage this opportunity? 

Certainly, there are lots of options out there already. And new ones are being innovated all the time. In this issue of the IMN we would like to highlight one such option: IMS’s very own Story Producer app.

The Story Producer (SP) app allows local language communities to produce visual Bible stories in their own languages in a form that is accessible to all their people. And all of this is done from a single phone or tablet. The device need only be an Android 7.0 or greater. Publishing micro-content of Bible stories, from conception to delivery, is now available to just about anyone.

“What a lot of people already have in their pockets is all they really need to make this happen.” Hear more of what Joel Groening has to say regarding the SP app.
"Cet appareil que beaucoup de gens ont déjà dans leur poche est tout ce qu’il leur faut pour le mettre en oeuvre." Écoutez la suite des propos de Joel Groening concernant l'application SP.The app guides users through the process of learning Bible stories, translating the stories, checking the translations for clarity and accuracy, and then producing and sharing a video of that translated story. The app produces each video in two file formats. One is MP4, ideal for uploading to YouTube and other platforms, and the other is a 3GP, a format accessible on older-generation feature phones. Anybody in any community, as long as they have a phone, should be able to watch videos made by the SP app.

Timothy Bandirana of Uganda describes how stories proliferate throughout a language community.
Timothy Bandirana, de l'Ouganda, décrit comment les histoires prolifèrent dans une communauté linguistique.

The app has a number of features that make it ideal for local adoption and proliferation. For instance, users can record locally composed songs, append them to the story, and include them in the final video that is produced. All of this serves to enhance the message of the story and amplify community impact.

This group off the coast of Papua New Guinea briefly demonstrates the song recording feature.
Ce groupe au large des côtes de Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée fait une brève démonstration de la fonction d'enregistrement des chansons.

Each story template used by the SP app comes with illustrations for each frame. But the user is not limited to those illustrations. If the user so chooses, he or she can replace the illustrations with their own photographs or images, thereby allowing them to contextualize the visual aspect of the story to their own setting. 

You can find more information about the app, including printable step-by-step handouts, on the Story Producer page of the IMS website.

Ricky DiMartino joined SIL International Media Services (IMS) in 2020 and works as the IMS PR Coordinator. He became editor of the IMN (and defender of the Oxford comma) in 2021.