I think the most societal social change that came about because of the Gutenberg printing press was communications, or the way we are able to communicate through mass production. This can also included just the way we communicate with each other in general. The printing press was just a new era in the establishment of communication. Before it, books were very expensive and rare. One would tell a scribe what to write, and the scribe would then right everything down by hand. Or one would scribe his own books, interpreting what they were reading or thinking. Although this idea was good for its time, often things were mistranslated, or miss-communicated.
I think the change in communications was a paradigm shift by Kuhn's definition and here is why. The printing press has an established set of followers. There are those like Elizabeth Eisenstein, who feel the printing press changed the course of history all on its own. Eisenstein firmly believes that the printing press stands alone as the biggest and the most significant change through out history. She claims the printing press was the start of the communications era that has landed us where we are today. There are others who unlike Eisenstein feel no such change. They feel it was not the single most important part of history that made the world what it is today, although it could have played a small part. Lastly, there are those who fall someplace in the middle. These middle of the road people believe that the Gutenberg Printing Press with movable type made some significant changes in history, but not as much of those who are firm believers like Eisenstein. These people are all bound to the discipline of the relevance in the printing press and history. Some started to stem their own theories and built upwards from there. Eisenstein started with mere facts, a collection of theories of her own and of others. This collection of data was then built on over the years.
Paradigm Shifts can also be called a great jump forward for man. Thus, the printing press changed the culture of people and had a direct effect on the scientific revolution. Printing press was an agent of change. A change that changed one way of thinking into another. Books became available for those who could read. They were smaller, easier to handle and easier to store. People could carry their books with them, take them from on place to the next and easily pass them on to someone else for reading. Printing a book also became cheaper to make, took less time and cheaper to purchase then a book that was handwritten. Huge amounts of people were able to get their hands on the printed scriptures. Gutenberg printed the first Bible. The great Bible then made its way into the hands of the common man. The man's attitude began to change as people were able to learn what was really going on with the church. They were then able to separate themselves of the dominating church. Martin Luther was able to get his words printed and out into man's hands. His voice was then heard as well as his "knock heard around the world."
All of these factors are changes in which make a paradigm. We have found that there are 5 major Paradigm Shifts. Spoken Word, Written Word, Printed Word, Computers and the World Wide Web. Hence the reason why I think communications was the most important societal change that came about due to the printing press.