The History of Communication

1
The History of Communication

• Media Analysis and Composition

2
Media Time Line
Photography
Telegraph/ Telephone
Radio/TV Motion Pictures
Printing
Language
Writing
Computers
AD 1800
200,000 40,000 BC
3,500 BC
AD 1500
AD 1900
3
Prehistoric Language

• Most likely nonverbal communication
• Gestures and body movements
• Why didnt it stay nonverbal?
• Sign language is not very effective in the dark
• Darwin left both hands free for survival

4
Language

• How did language develop?
• No one knows for sure. What we do know is that
  language was a tremendous factor in the
  advancement of early civilization
• Directions to coordinate the hunt
• Social power structure emerged (orders)
• Instructions (how to ) /Oral culture
• Development of conceptual thinking
• When? Anywhere from 200,000 BC to 40,000 BC

5
Writing

• Two Problems
• What symbols should be used?
• Sign Writing
• Alphabet
• What surface should be used?
• Clay Tablets
• Papyrus (Egyptians)
• Parchment (Greeks)
• Paper (Chinese)

6
Social Impacts of Writing

• Social Divisions
• Ability to read/write power
• Empires
• Record collections, organization, trade
• Preservation of Knowledge
• Great Library at Alexandria
• Code of Laws
• Code of Hammurabi

If fire break out in a house, and some one who
comes to put it out cast his eye upon the
property of the owner of the house, and take the
property of the master of the house, he shall be
thrown into that self-same fire. -Code of
Hammurabi
7
Printing

• China is responsible for movable block printing
• Oldest surviving block-printed book dates to 868
• Johann Gutenberg is credited with the first
  printing press
• Used movable metal type
• Published the Gutenberg Bible around 1453
• Books were no longer the possession of the very
  rich

8
Effects of the Gutenberg Press

• Developed everyday language
• Aided in religious upheaval
• The Bible was now widely available
• Speeded up the publication of scientific research
• Helped exploration
• Vikings VS Columbus
• Expanded growth of knowledge
• Led to the development of news

9
The Telegraph - Impacts

• Westward Expansion
• War
• Sped up communication between buyers and sellers
• Enhanced the newspapers ability to transmit news
• Made the news international
• Shorter style
• Created a sense of national unity
• The invention of the telephone connected
  individual homes

Samuel Morse is considered the principle force
behind the telegraph (1838)
10
Capturing the Image

• Two requirements
• A way to focus an image
• Camera Obscura (16th Century) dark chamber with
  a pinhole in one wall that allowed light to
  project the image
• A way to store an image
• Daguerre discovers silver iodide and creates
  negatives
• Box Camera is developed by Kodak in the 1890s
• Influences
• Allowed for history to be preserved
• Ordinary people significant objects
• Photojournalism

11
Photojournalism

• Photojournalism Journalism in which written text
  is secondary to photographs in news stories
• Influences
• Allowed readers to just look at the picture and
  understand the story rather than reading the
  entire article
• Changed the definition of news news became that
  which could be shown
• Accidents, natural disasters, demonstrations, and
  riots became photo opportunities
• Created visual bias in the media

12
Moving Pictures

• Nickelodeons (early 1900s)
• 5-cent theatres that showed silent films
• Silent Films (1900-1927)
• Charlie Chaplin
• Talkies (1927)
• The Jazz Singer
• The Studio Years (1930-1950)
• Color Film (1941)
• Gone With the Wind

13
Impacts of the Motion Picture

• Movies became an important social activity
• Hollywood produces cultural icons, the movie
  stars
• Appealed to all social classes popular culture

14
Radio

• The first medium that brought live entertainment
  into the home
• Developed from the discovery of electromagnetic
  waves
• Considerable advances during World War I
• 1920s brought sports, music, talk, and news to
  the living room
• Helped popularize music
• Grand Ole Opry
• Personalized the News
• Was a huge form of entertainment during the 1940s

15
Television

• TV began development in the 20s and 30s but was
  interrupted by WWII
• New discoveries in radar from the war improved TV
• Swept the US like a plague
• Telephone 85 in 80 years
• Automobile 85 in 49 years
• TV 85 in 10 years
• TV became the leisure time activity
• Today 99 of all households have a television

16
The Digital Revolution

• A system that encodes information sound, text,
  data, and video into a series of on-and-off
  pulses
• The computer was the first to use the digital
  system
• Cultural Impacts
• Notion of Community
• Social Isolation
• Digital Divide

The Automatic Computing Engine