1. Chapter 3
Historical and Cultural Context
The Impact of New Communication on Culture

2. Timeline of Communication Technologies
This chapter steps back and takes a broad view of media history,
emphasizing major events and general trends.
Seven milestones in the development of human communication: printing, telegraph
and telephone, photography and motion pictures, radio and television, digital media,
mobile media, and social media

3. Before Mass Communication
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Language developed 200,000 years ago
Let to the development of an oral culture;
dependent on the spoken word
There was a need to keep more detailed
permanent and accessible records
Writing developed in Sumeria (present
day Iraq) in 3500 B.C.
Developed in Egypt and China a few
hundred years later
Led to the establishment of a privileged
class (the literate)
Books were common in the Middle Ages
Books were constructed by Monks and
scribes in the era before the printing press

4. Printing
• The Chinese invented paper,
and block printing (character
outlines were carved into wood,
and that was inked and pressed
onto paper)
• China and Korea experimented
with movable type by the
beginning of the 15th Century
• In Germany, Johann Gutenberg
developed a moveable type,
metal printing press

5. Effects of the Gutenberg Revolution
• Facilitated the development of languages across
Europe (vernacular = everyday language)
• Prior to this, most books were written in Latin
• Information was accessible to more people, not
just the financial or academically elite
• Growth of literacy, communication of ideas
• Sped up publication of scientific research
• Dissemination of news
• Technological determinism: belief that
technology drives historical change

6. Conquering Space and Time: Telegraph
and Telephone
• Before the telegraph, carrier
pigeons were the fastest way
to send messages
• Telegraph can send
messages at 186,000 miles
per second – the speed of
light
• Described as the “great
annihilator of time and
space”
• Invented by Samuel Morse

7. Conquering Space and Time: Telegraph
and Telephone
• Cultural Impact: improved communication,
conduct of war (communicating with
troops, mobilization efforts), sped up
communications between buyers and
sellers – leading to price standardization,
enhanced the newspaper’s ability to
transmit news
• Gov’t did not get involved with regulating
use of the telegraph; that was left to private
companies, most notably Western Union
• Introduced the notion of the Global Village
(coined by Marshall McLuhan)
• Telephone allowed for voice transmission,
creating even more linkage among
Americans

8. Capturing the Image: Photography and
Motion Pictures
• Two things required to
permanently store an image: a
way to focus an image on a
surface, and the surface must be
permanently altered as a result
of that exposure
• 16th century: Camera Obscura
• 1830s: Joseph Niepce and Louis
Daguerre used silver iodide to
capture images
• 1890s: George Eastman and
Kodak introduce the box camera

9. Capturing the Image: Photography and
Motion Pictures
• Matthew Brady: Civil
War photographer, first
to show what war
looked like in a realistic
way
• Impact on art
• New profession:
Photojournalist
• “Communal reservoir of
images”

10. Capturing the Image: Photography and
Motion Pictures

11. Capturing the Image: Photography and
Motion Pictures
• 1900s: Nickelodeons
sprang up in cities
• Long-range impact of
motion pictures is
mostly in the areas
of entertainment
• Produced cultural
icons (movie stars)
• Also had an impact
on journalism with
newsreels

12. News & Entertainment at Home: Radio and
TV Broadcasting
• The shift from using radio as a
point-to-point form of
communication (i.e. ship to ship,
ship to shore) to a point-to-many
type of communication surprised
people
• Radio was a hit; created the
broadcast advertising market
• Led to the creation of the Federal
Communications Commission
• Became a more important source
of news than the newspaper

13. News & Entertainment at Home: Radio and
TV Broadcasting
• Helped popularize different
kinds of music
• Had impact on popular
culture through
programming
• Changed the way Americans
spent their free time; radio
was the primary form of
news and entertainment

14. News & Entertainment at Home: Radio and
TV Broadcasting
• TV became popular post WWII
• Much is happening in American
culture during the time TV
comes of age; allowed these
events to be experienced in
people’s living rooms
• Today, TV is in 99% of
households
• Replaced radio as the source of
entertainment and news

15. The Digital Revolution
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How is e-mail different from traditional
mail?
Digital systems encode information in
ways (binary computer code) that allow it
to be transmitted instantly
The internet connects the entire globe
Convergence of media
Everyone can be a mass communicator
Impact on politics
Job creation/economic effects: creation
of new industry
Impact on art/music
Video: Online video (Pew Research Center)
Digital Divide: describes the gap that
exists between those with access to the
internet and computing technology, and
those without access.

16. The rise of the intangibles
• In 2011, Amazon reported
Kindle e-books were outselling
print editions
• The number of people who have a
tablet or an e-book reader among
those 16 and older now stands at
43%
(Pew Research Center, October 2013)
• Digital music sales have
decreased for the first time in
2013:
– the CD declined 14.5%
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digital albums comprise 40.6%
the CD is 57.2%
cassettes and DVDs 0.2%
vinyl represents a growing 2% of
the industry.
(Billboard, January 2014)

17. The rise of the intangibles
• Sales & rentals of DVD
media are declining, while
streaming media
increases in popularity
• Newspapers and
magazines struggle in
print, trying to redefine
themselves for the WWW
and mobile media (apps)
• Direct download of games
(Xbox 360, Wii, iDevices)

18. Mobile Media
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Depend on wireless technology; portable;
interconnected (phone and internet); blurring the
distinction between mass and interpersonal
communication
Accomplished surveillance function better than any
other media
Everything, everywhere
Status
Mobile parenting: using mobile media to assist in
family life
Time softening: how cell phones change our concept
of time
Talking/texting while driving
Pervasiveness of camera phones
Expensive
“Third screen” (TV, Computer, Mobile)

19. Social Media
• Telephone was the first tool for
social media; connected people,
enabled keeping in touch
• Internet provides many more
channels for socializing
• Social networking sites (Facebook)
create a global social neighborhood
• Creating a surveillance culture
• Make history more permanent (the
internet is written in ink)

20. Social Media
• Sixdegrees.com (2000) is largely
regarded as the first social network
• Myspace (2005) sold to NewsCorp for
$580M
• Facebook began in 2004
• Twitter began in 2005
• People over the age of 55 are the
fastest growing demographic joining
Facebook

21. The Impact of New Media
The greatest potential impact of a new
invention is not how it changes or replaces old things
but how
it generates things that
are entirely new