historical n cultural context

7/30/2019 Historical n Cultural Context

1/34

Introduction toMass Communication

DIP. IN COMMUNICATION & MEDIA

FACULTY OF COMMUNICATION & MEDIA


2/34

Part 1

The Nature and History of

Mass Communications


3/34

Chapter 3

Historical and

Cultural Context


4/34

Seven Milestones in the Historyof Human Communication

Language 200,000-100,00 B.C.

Writing 3500 B.C.

Printing A.D. 1500


5/34

Seven Milestones in the History

of Human Communication

Photography and

Motion Pictures 1800s 1900s

Telephone and

Telegraph 1800s 1900s

Radio and Television 1900s

Computers / Internet 1900s


6/34

The Seven Milestones Timeline


7/34

Language

Made possible oral-based societies

Members needed exceptional memories

Premium on older people as memory banks

Limit to stored and accessible knowledge

Challenges:

How to keep information accurate Passing knowledge from one generation to next

Difficulty keeping long-term records


8/34

Writing

Two initial problems:

What symbols do you use to represent ideas?

What writing surface works best?


9/34

Sign Writing vs. Phonetic Writing

Two approaches:

Graphic symbols representing objects

Chinese pictographs

Egyptian hieroglyphics

Abstract symbols (alphabet) for ideas/sounds

Phoenician 24-character alphabet

Roman-modified 26-character alphabet


10/34

Clay vs. Paper

Cuneiform Sumeria wedge-shaped clay tablets

Papyrus Egypt woven papyrus plants

Parchment Greece sheep/goat hides

Paper China pressed wood and fiber pulp


11/34

Social Impact of Writing

Created social divisions: readers vs. illiterates

Access to power garnered through knowledge Encouraged birth and growth of ancient empires

Collective knowledge accumulates over time

Laws codified and universally administered


12/34

Writing During the Dark Ages

Begins with fall of Rome in the 6th century

Demand for books continues to rise, but . . .

Slow, costly hand-copying restricts supplies

Mistakes common and cumulative


13/34

Writing During the Dark Ages

No filing or cross-indexing system in place

Content moves from religion to lay areas

Trade spreads, universities begin, AD 1150

European Scriptorias(writing shops) flourish


14/34

The introduction of

moveable type is the startof mass communication, an

event of immense importanceto Western civilization.

Printing


15/34

Effects of the Gutenberg Revolution

Printing

Standardizes, popularizes native languages

Which, in turn, encourages nationalism

Information now available to common man

More books fuel demand for wider literacy


16/34

Effects of the Gutenberg Revolution

Spawns new social and religious doctrines

Speeds books, research in scientific research

Encourages exploration with maps and exploits

Human knowledge base grows exponentially

Eventually leads to what we would call news


17/34

Technological Determinism

Belief that technology (e.g., invention of moveable

type) basically drives historical change. Others

counter that technology functions with various

social, economic, and cultural forces to help

bring about changes.


18/34

The Telegraph and Telephone

The Telegraph

Invention of telegraph speeds communicationfrom 30 mph limit to 186,000 miles per second

First to make instantaneous, point-to-point,

long-distance communication possible

Morse Code uses system of dots and dashes


19/34

Telegraph: the Cultural Impact

By 1850 most large U.S. cities linked together

1866 Trans-Atlantic cable links U.S. to Europe

Standardizes, stabilizes, and links market

prices, changing how we buy and sell goods

Becomes indispensable military tool

Allows up-to-date news from distant sources


20/34

The Telephone

Along with the telegraph, telephones change

our perspective of time and space

First no-experience-required, user-friendlycommunication device

AT&T dominates telephone industry just as

Western Union dominates the telegraph


21/34

Photography

and Motion Pictures

Two inventions make photography possible:

way to focus light rays onto a surface (1500s pinholedevice, camera obscura, solves problem)

way to permanently store and copy the images

Glass plates (Daguerreotypes) first solution Wm. Talbot, England, invents film paper

George Eastman introduces Brownie, 1890s


22/34

Photojournalism Mathew Brady chronicles U.S. Civil War, the first

photographically recorded war

Photography frees art from depicting real world

Demand for photographic coverage of events

creates market for picture periodicals such asLife and Look magazines; news definition nowmodified to news is that which can be shown


23/34

Pictures in Motion

Three great social movements fuel demand

for motion pictures:

industrialization

urbanization

immigrationNickelodeons, 10,000 store-front theaters by 1910s,

also help create film industry infrastructure


24/34

Motion Pictures and American Culture

Motion pictures center around large cash-rich

firms and quickly dominate the three-prongs of

the film industry:

Production

Distribution

Exhibition

Film kills Vaudeville (which frees talent for radio later)


25/34

Motion Pictures and American Culture

Film becomes new popular leisure time activity

Film images and stars become national icons

Films portray model American values and

culture

1930 Payne Fund examines film medium, firstserious effort to study potential media effects

1930s newsreels are forerunner to TV news


26/34

Radio and Television

Radio (or wireless) debuts around 1910 as a

byproduct of research in physics

WWI military leaders encourage radio R&D; in so

doing, they end bottleneck patent war problems

The term broadcastingis coined to describe Radios

one to many format

First medium to bring mass entertainment into the

American living room


27/34

Radios evolution

The manufacturing of radio sets was originally seenas the best way to make a profit in the new industry

In the 1920s, AT&T introduces idea of selling

audiences to companies; leased air time becomesadvertising

In 1927 the Federal Radio Commission is created toregulate radios tech side: frequency and signal

strength

By late 1920s three networks emerge: CBS andNBC (the latter with two, NBC red and NBC Blue)


28/34

Radios evolution

In 1934 the Federal Communication Commissionreplaces FRC; oversees entire electromagneticspectrum

Radio content targeted for national mass appeal

The radio is a household staple during GreatDepression

Exodus of vaudeville actors gives radio new stars

By WWII, radio journalism emerges as a strong, newnational and local source of news


29/34

Radios Cultural Impact

Serves to popularize music and performers

Introduces new entertainment genre: the soap

opera; boasts 60% of daytime programs by 1940 First to aim mass content at children

Invents new comedy genre: the sitcom

Becomes main source of at-home entertainment

concept of evening prime time hours begins


30/34

Television

Developed decades earlier, but hampered bythe Great Depression, WWII, and regulatoryproblems, TV finally emerges in early 1950s

TV is now in 99% of all U.S. homes, and is onover seven hours per day. Its our third largesttime consumer following sleep and work

Fosters everything/everywhere expectation

Helps create a new global village mentality


31/34

The Digital Revolution

Described as an information delivery shift

from the slow moving material world made of

atoms to the instantaneous and virtual world

made up of 0s and 1s, or bits

Digital technology and the Internet are

creating a revolution in the way information is

transmitted, accessed, shared, and stored


32/34

Problems of the Digital Age

Idea of community is changing, with bonds

based on needs or interests rather than locality

Fostering new era of physical and social isolation

How we govern, vote, get politically involved and

influence our leaders is changing rapidly

Societys new Digital Divide -- a widening gap

between those who have the training and wealth

to use computers and those who dont


33/34

Concluding Observations

Its difficult to accurately predict the ultimate

use of any new mass medium .

However, it appears that the emergence of

any new communication advance changes,but does not make extinct those advancesthat came before it.


34/34

End of Chapter 3

Historical and Cultural Context

historical n cultural context

Documents