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Summary journalism
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- News journalism (COMM)
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- Cardiff University (CF)
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INTRODUCTION TO MASS COMMUNICATIONSELECTED TOPICS
Elements of the Mass media
1. Audiences
2. Media content
3. Media personnel
4. Media regulators
5. Media distributors
6. Advertisers and marketers
Means of human communication through time.
History of print media and written communication follows the progress of civilization which, in
turn, moves in response to changing cultural technologies. The transfer of complex information,
ideas and concepts from one individual to another, or to a group, underwent extreme evolution
since prehistoric times. It has been 30,000 years later since the first recorded evidence of written
communication and it is still dramatically changing. Nowadays perhaps faster than ever before
due to amazing advances in technology in recent years. Technical breakthroughs alter the way
we perceive the universe and manner in which we communicate with one another.
As long ago as 25,000-30,000 years B.C. first humans painted descriptive pictures on cave walls.
The narrative compositions left on the walls of Lascaux represented their own way of
communicating with the spiritual world and another. The well-preserved drawing depicted their
deep religious beliefs, fears, and every day life. The pictorial type found in caves of Southern
France and Spain is the beginning of written communication for the human kind.
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet/en/index.html
The advent of a writing system coincided with the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to
more permanent agrarian encampments when it became necessary to count ones property. One of
the earliest examples of pictorial writing was found in the excavation of Uruk in Mesopotamia,
dating from 3500 B.C. The Sumerians developed cuneiform (pictographs) writing on wet clay
tablets. http://www.worldhistorysite.com/culttech.html Later (2900 B.C.), the Egyptians
developed hieroglyphic writing. Special scribes were employed to keep records for the priest
class who exacted taxation from the population. Their records on papyrus and pigment were less
permanent than the frieze carvings in tamples, which were meant to last for eternity.
In 1900 B.C. the Chinese independently developed their very own style of writing. The earliest
record of Chinese writing was found preserved on various bones. Their achievement was the
building stone for Japanese and Korean to create their own models in 400 B.C.
,The first alphabetic script appeared in Palestine at about 160 B.C., which influenced early
Phoenician (113 B.C.) and Hebrew script (110 B.C.). Greek alphabet derived from Phoenician
script in 110 B.C. and was the source for Latin alphabet ( 7 B.C.), which consequently fathered
Frankish Carolingian Latin script ( 800 B.C.).
At first we used stone and clay tablets to express our thoughts. With passage of time we
developed other means of writing surfaces. The first portable and light writing surface were
papyrus rolls and early parchments papers made of dried reeds in China ( 500-170 B.C.). Later,
in 105 B.C., Tsai Lun of China invented paper as we know it today.
Invention of paper revolutionized the face of print. Written word became more accessible. In 11th
century A.D. Pi Sheng of China starts to print with movable clay type and in 6th century Chinese
engravers mastered art of wood-block printing. In 100 A.D. we saw the first bound book on the
market. http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_history_of_communication.htm.
Before Johann Gutenberg’s invention of printing press, books were produced by scribes based
usually monasteries. The process of writing was very laborites. This remained true until the
invention of movable type, which is attributed to Jahann Gutenberg of Mainz, Germany,
(although the Chinese had a crude version of printing press). Gutenberg was a man of vision and
developed movable printing press, which made the process much quicker and cheaper than
wood-block printing. However, his investors (Fust and Schoeffer) repossessed his business
before the first mass produced book was successfully printed.
Gutenberg’s invention was revolutionary. It was the first mass medium, and allowed for free
spread of ideas in a completely unprecedented fashion. The Protestant Reformation might not
have occurred without the ability to quickly create thousands of copies of Luther’s Theses for
public distribution. http://opax.swin.edu.au/~388226/it_issues/text.htm
Gutenberg’s brilliant idea aided the creation of the first newspaper printed in Germany in 1609.
Less than 92 years later, in 1702, England had the first newspaper published daily; it was called
the “Daily Courant.” The year 1714 brought another important discovery. Englishman Henry
Mill received the first patent for a typewriter. Few years later (1737) Pierre Simon Fournier
invented point system in type, which was eventually modified and standardized by Ambroise
Didot. In the earlier days of printing, different sizes of type had been called by different names.
The system was different in each country and created lots of unnecessary confusion. Fournier
and Didot worked out the system where approximately 72 points created one inch. This
innovation is still in use in modern day computers. In 1839 woodcuts and lithograph from
daguerreotypes decorated pages of magazines. Few decades later, in 1881, development of
halftone press made possible to reproduce photographs in books and newspapers.
http://xavier.xu.edu:8000/~polt/tw-history.html
In early 19th century the industrial revolution brought major innovations in printing technology.
In 1810, Friedrich Koenig applied steam power to printing press. Rotary steam presses replaced
hand operated machines, doing the same job in a small fraction of the time. Typesetting was
transformed by the introduction of line-casting machines; first Ottmar Mergenthaler’s Linotype
(1889), and then the Monotype machine. Line casting allowed type be chosen, used, and then
recirculated back into the machine automatically.
,Age of industrial revolution made transfer and interchange of written information between cities
as well as continents readily available. In 1831 Joseph Henry invented the first electric telegraph,
four years later in 1835 Samuel Morse formulated Morse Code, and then in 1843 he also
produced the first long distance electric telegraph line. At the same time, Alexander Bain
patented the first fax machine. In 1867 Thomas Edison patented his mimeograph, which was the
first office-copying machine, which might inspired Chester Carlson , almost a century later, to
invent the photocopier machine.
Business life was irreversibly changed with in the introduction to the market of Remington
typewriter (1874). Journalism also became more accessible when in 1914 Howard Krum
introduced Teletype. Knowledge of Morse Code was no longer needed to distribute information.
http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/%7Eedtech/688/hist.htm,
http://www.knobstick.ca/museum/vhist.htm
In 1935 the first electric typewriter entered the market. However it gained its popularity after
WWII. Electronic typewriters allowed for faster typing because the keystrokes were electrically
assisted. The golf ball typewriter and Daisy Wheel typewriters allowed for greater range of fonts
and styles as these could be changed by changing the golfball or daisywheel cartridge. Many of
the electric typewriters allowed for variable line and character spacing.
In 1965 IBM introduced the first word processor. Few years later, in 1979, VisiCalc develops the
first spreadsheet program and Wordstar released their first word processing package, which
revolutionized our work environment and business world. Word processors were single purpose
machines, which allowed for on screen editing and electronic storage. The initial advertising
materials for these machines advised managers that they could do the work of five typists. In
1963 we noticed the arrival if the first light pen by MIT. This innovation might have been the
beginning of modern computer graphics. http://www.sun.com/960710/feature3/sketchpad.html.
1. Photocomposition, typesetting mode enter the market in 1944, but didn’t catch on until
the early 1950s. Typeface masters for photocomposition are on film; the characters are
projected onto photosensitive paper. Lenses are used to adjust the size of the image,
scaling the type to desired size. This innovating technology allowed for overlapping
characters.
2. The digital era in typesetting started in early 1970s. The earliest computer-based
typesetters were a hybrid between the photocomposition machines and later pure digital
output. They each had their own command language for communicating with output
devices.
3. In the late 1980s PostScript gradually emerged as the standard for digital typesetting.
This was due to a variety of reasons, including its inclusion in the Apple Laserwriter
printer and its powerful graphics handling. When combined with the Macintosh, the first
widely used computer, and PageMaker, the first desktop publishing program, gave us the
roots of current computer based technology.
4. Technological advances in printing made possible for books to be more accessible to
wider audience. Initially books were privileged items belonging to wealthy level of
society. With time books found a way to every knowledge-seeking household in the
modern world. In 1786 the first embossed book was published for blind people. The 1904
, is a special year for comic book lovers. The first regular comic book entered the market
that year. Children were pleased to see their first interactive book in 1940. Dorothy
Kunhardt’s “Pat the Bunny,” thought children to think outside of the box by employing
multimedia and interactivity. http://home.earthlink.net/~atomic_rom/moments.htm,
http://www.discovery.com/guides/history/historybuff/library/refbraille.html
5. Nowadays, the print industry goes trough a dry spell. Printing becomes increasingly more
expansive. To combat with this problem the industry increased use of digital printers that
can efficiently produce high quality paper books on demand. CAP Ventures predicted
that within five years, 80% of all print will be ordered via www. This created new model
of publishing- so called e-publishing (on demand). The printed book is currently under
attack by e-book. Present e-books are handheld devices in which books can be
downloaded in a file form and read on a backlit screen using buttons to maneuver through
text. There have been also experiments with on-line book distribution by Stephan King,
David Saperstein, Mary Higgins and others authors.
6. Bob Sein, founder of Night Kitchen is currently developing software known as TK-3,
enabling authors to write Multimedia Books. Books could be then imbedded with video
and audio, searchable sticky notes, Internet links and annobeam for annotations. Children
books and reference books, books that need constant updating will benefit from this
technology. Children will want to read a book and interact with the characters.
7. E-books and the Interent will never be able to replace the print version of the book or
even to compete with the book. We feel nostalgic about books, we want to flip though
pages and collect them. The traditional interaction with a printed book is timeless.
http://www.futureprint.kent.edu/articles/henke01.htm,
http://www.futureprint.kent.edu/articles/doane01.htm
8. In 1975 Kurzweil Technologies started to work on first omni-font optical character
recognition, first flatbed scanner and first text-to-speech syntheses. The final products
entered the market much later but the idea was conceived then. In 1999 Ray Kurzweil
received the National Medal of Technology for his developments.
http://www.kurzweiltech.com/ktihome.html
9. Voice recognition systems are commercially available. Medical businesses are currently
embracing this technology as well as handicapped people (example: radiologists could
input data without getting exposed to x-rays, visually impaired people could use the word
processor, etc.).
10. The 1990s created handwriting recognition system. The Apple Newton is the precursor to
widespread handwriting recognition programs, allowing users to directly input their own
information and more easily enter data while on the go.
11. Currently we are working on improving the display of printed media. Our digital
technology is trying to compete with ordinary paper as a display medium for printed
matter. Dai Nippon Printing (DNP) company’s Central Research Institute has been
developing a digital, paper-like medium for information display that can be electronically
erased and thermally rewritten many times.
http://futureprint.kent.edu/articles/saito01.htm
12. The Liquid Crystal Institute successfully produced sophisticated weightless, flexible
display that operates for many hours using lightweight batteries and exhibiting high
resolution and contrast. http://futureprint.kent.edu/articles/west01.htm
13. Company called E-Ink is creating electrophoretic ink. This ink has high contrast display
that can be read easily from any angle just like real print. The secret is in the ink made up
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