I've found the following word transformation exercise in the book Cambridge English Proficiency 2 (page 51, exercise 17).
All children occasionally ask why we should bother reading. Now, 500 years after Gutenberg’s printing press ___________ DEMOCRACY reading, recent technological advances mean psychologists may be able to find an answer. Using brain scans, they have found we create mental simulations of situations encountered in a book and weave these together with real-life experiences to create a new way of thinking. This is something many of us will understand instinctively when we look back and realise that an outstanding book that we read in the past had an absolutely revolutionary effect on how we view the world. This transformation takes place only when we lose ourselves unconditionally in a book. Studies have found this deep reading makes us more sympathetic, more alert to the inner lives of others.
According to the answer's sheet, the answer of that exercise is democratised or democratized. Cambridge Dictionary shows a single definition for democratize: "to make countries or organizations use democratic ways of making decisions." I can't relate this definition with that context. Could anyone explain what's the meaning of democratize in that context?
