The Dynamics of

Mass Communication
Seventh Edition

Joseph R. Dominick
Part 1

The Nature and History of

Mass Communications
Chapter 3

Historical and
Cultural Context
Seven Milestones in the History
of Human Communication

• Language 200,000-100,00 B.C.

• Writing 3500 B.C.

• Printing A.D. 1500

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

The Seven Milestones Timeline
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
Writing
Two initial problems:

 What symbols do you use to represent ideas?

 What writing surface works best?

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
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

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

Printing
The introduction of
moveable type is the start
of mass communication, an
event of immense importance
to Western civilization.
Printing
Effects of the Gutenberg Revolution

Standardizes, popularizes native languages

Which, in turn, encourages nationalism

Information now available to common man

More books fuel demand for wider literacy

The Telegraph and Telephone
The Telegraph
 Invention of telegraph speeds communication
from 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
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

The Telephone
 Along with the telegraph, telephones change
our perspective of time and space

 First “no-experience-required, user-friendly”

communication device

 AT&T dominates telephone industry just as

Western Union dominates the telegraph
Photography
and Motion Pictures
Two inventions make photography possible:
• way to focus light rays onto a surface (1500s pinhole
device, 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
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 as
Life and Look magazines; news definition now
modified to news is that which can be shown
Pictures in Motion
Three great social movements fuel demand
for motion pictures:
• industrialization
• urbanization
• immigration
Nickelodeons, 10,000 store-front theaters by 1910s,
also help create film industry infrastructure
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)
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, first

serious effort to study potential media effects

• 1930s “newsreels” are forerunner to TV news

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 broadcasting is coined to describe Radio’s
“one to many” format
 First medium to bring mass entertainment into the
American living room
Radio’s evolution
 The manufacturing of radio sets was originally seen
as 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 becomes
“advertising”
 In 1927 the Federal Radio Commission is created to
regulate radio’s tech side: frequency and signal
strength
 By late 1920s three networks emerge: CBS and
NBC (the latter with two, NBC red and NBC Blue)
Radio’s evolution
 In 1934 the Federal Communication Commission
replaces FRC; oversees entire electromagnetic
spectrum
 Radio content targeted for national mass appeal
 The radio is a household staple during Great
Depression
 Exodus of vaudeville actors gives radio new stars
 By WWII, radio journalism emerges as a strong, new
national and local source of news
Radio’s 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
Television
 Developed decades earlier, but hampered by
the Great Depression, WWII, and regulatory
problems, TV finally emerges in early 1950s
 TV is now in 99% of all U.S. homes, and is on
over seven hours per day. It’s our third largest
time consumer following sleep and work
 Fosters “everything/everywhere” expectation
 Helps create a new “global village” mentality
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
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
 Society’s new “Digital Divide” -- a widening gap
between those who have the training and wealth
to use computers and those who don’t
 Concluding Observations

It’s 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 advances
that came before it.