Historical and Cultural Context

1. Historical and Cultural Context Chapter 3 © 2009, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

2. CHAPTER OUTLINE • Language • Writing • Printing • Conquering Space and Time: The Telegraph and Telephone • Capturing the Image: Photography and Motion Pictures • News and Entertainment at Home: Radio and Television Broadcasting • The Digital Revolution • Mobile Media • Concluding Observations

3. LANGUAGE • Major development in evolution of human race • Oral cultures required good memories • Knowledge and information base grew slowly • Accuracy was a challenge • Record keeping was difficult

4. WRITING • As the need for better record-keeping grew, two problems needed to be solved: • What symbols to use to represent sounds/ideas • On what surface to record these symbols

5. Sign Writing vs. Phonetic Writing • Sign writing • Graphic symbols represent objects, sounds, ideas • Chinese pictographs; Egyptian hieroglyphics • Phonetic writing • Symbols represent sounds, grouped to make words, grouped to make sentences • Phoenician alphabet

6. Clay vs. paper • Evolution of writing surfaces: • Soft clay tablets • Woven papyrus plants • Parchment (sheep, goat) • Paper from tree bark pulp

7. Social Impact of Writing • New social division based on ability to read • Unequal access to power via knowledge • Birth, growth, maintenance of powerful empires • Accumulation and preservation of knowledge • Codification of laws, consistently applied

8. The Middle Ages • 6th century: demand for books rose but supply was low, and copies had errors • Monks hand-copied each manuscript • No standard filing or cross-referencing system • By 1150: more need to store information • Developments include trade routes, universities, strong central governments, secularization of books, widespread introduction of paper, scriptoria (writing shops)

9. PRINTING • China: Paper; Block printing (oldest surviving book 9th Century); Movable type • Korea: Metal movable type (15th Century) • Germany: Gutenberg (15th Century) movable metal type printing press • Gutenberg’s use of movable metal type revolutionized communication • Communication could be cheap, quick, error-free

10. Effects of the Gutenberg Revolution • Standardized and popularized vernacular languages; spawned growth of nationalism • More accessible information • Literacy increased • New schools of thought (Luther’s Protestantism) • Encouraged exploration • Increased growth of accumulated knowledge • Led to development of concept of “news”

11. Technology and Cultural Change • Technological Determinism • The belief that technology drives historical change

12. CONQUERING SPACE AND TIME: THE TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE • These two related technologies foretold many features of today’s media world

13. Development of the Telegraph • Speed of communication increased from 30 mph to 186,000 miles per second • Telegraph: Greek for “to write at a distance” • Digital technology: dots and dashes • Morse code

14. Cultural Impact of the Telegraph • By 1850, most Western frontier cities were linked with other cities • 1866: trans-Atlantic cable • The telegraph affected • How we moved goods • How we coordinated services • Standardization of market prices • News flow and news story length

15. Government and Media • Some countries saw telegraph as extension of postal service • U.S. followed model of private ownership and commercial development of the telegraph

16. A Change in Perspective • The telegraph changed how we thought of distance • Marshall McLuhan’s Global Village • Soon after the telegraph, the telephone began linking people • People didn’t need to understand telegraphic codes • The telephone industry became dominated by big business

17. CAPTURING THE IMAGE: PHOTOGRAPHY AND MOTION PICTURES • Advances in the field of chemistry allowed photography and motion pictures to develop

18. Early Technological Development • Two things needed to permanently store images • A way to focus light rays from a subject onto a surface • A way to permanently alter the surface • 16th Century: camera obscura • 1830s: daguerreotypes • 1830s: ability to store images • 1890:box camera

19. Mathew Brady • Brady was the first to capture war extensively on film • U.S. Civil War photographs gave accurate record of war • Photography also affected art • Artists freed to interpret the world in new ways • Photography became its own art form

20. Photography’s Influence on Mass Culture • Allowed people to keep permanent records of personal histories • Created profession of photojournalism • Photographic news as timesaving device • Changed definition of news • Cell phone cameras: privacy concerns

21. Pictures in Motion • Demand for film entertainment helped by • Industrialization • Urbanization • Immigration • Nickelodeons: 1900s crude store-front theaters • Helped create motion picture industry

22. Motion Pictures and American Culture • Large film companies survived and dominated film production, distribution, exhibition. • Film industry altered concept of leisure activities. • Hollywood produced cultural icons, helped bring about concept of popular culture • 1930s: Payne Fund studied media effects • Through 1950s: Newsreels continued to influence broadcast news reporting

23. NEWS AND ENTERTAINMENT AT HOME: RADIO AND TELEVISION BROADCASTING • Radio was first medium to bring live entertainment into the home • World War I: Radio seen as useful to warfare

24. Broadcasting • By the 1930s • Broadcasting was a national craze • Radio boomed, leading to creation of Federal Radio Commission (FRC) • FRC is precursor to current FCC • Two national radio networks emerged (later 3) • Content moved to mass appeal programs • Professionalism and appeal increased • Radio became more important news source than newspapers

25. Cultural Impact of Radio • Popularized different kinds of music • Introduced new entertainment genre, the soap opera • Introduced mass content for children • Saw children as viable commercial market • Introduced situation comedies • Radio news came of age in 1930s-40s • Radio personalized news, created news celebrities • Radio changed how people spend free time • Became prime source of entertainment

26. Television • 1950s • Following World War II, television’s growth surged • Sales of TV sets • Amount of time watching TV

27. Cultural Impact of TV • Television is in 99% of households • Set is on over 8 hours per day • Third-largest consumer of time • Only sleep and work consume more time • Transformed almost every aspect of our culture • We expect live coverage of events from anywhere, at any time • We can share a national or global consciousness

28. THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION (1 of 2) • Nicholas Negroponte: Digital revolution is the difference between atoms (material goods) and bits (electronic 0s and 1s) • Digital technology: system of encoding information as series of off-on pulses (0, 1) • Digitized information is easy to copy and transmit • Digital revolution affected mass media, business owners, audience members

29. THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION (2 of 2) • Social/cultural implications of the digital age • Rethink notion of community • Everyone can be a mass communicator • Effects on politics • Is a true direct democracy possible? • Effects on the arts • Information glut • Digital divide

30. MOBILE MEDIA (1 of 2) • Cell phones, laptop computers, PDAs (personal digital assistants) • Wireless technology • Portable, allowing access to information from anywhere • Interconnected • Blur distinction between mass communication and interpersonal communication

31. MOBILE MEDIA (2 of 2) • Serve some of traditional media functions • Surveillance • Entertainment • Linkage • Culture • Mobile parenting • Time softening • Downsides • Driving distractions • Privacy issues • Interfere with interactions • Cost

32. CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS • Predicting the ultimate use of any new medium is difficult • Any new communication advance may change, but does not make extinct, the advances that came before.