Is there a connection between the spread of protestantism and the spread of the printing press

There is!

The invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg is widely regarded as the beginning of the mass communication era.

This enabled ideas to begin to spread more freely and to be heard by more people.

These ideas included ideas about the reform of the Catholic Church which led to new translations of the Bible (enabled by the printing press) which in turn led to the Protestant Reformation.

It is widely believed that the Protestant Reformation could not have occurred without some ability to communicate with the masses.