write a term paper on how the computer as revolutionize the practice mass communication

The computer revolution: how it's changed our world over 60 years

The BlueGene/L supercomputer can perform 280.6 trillion operations per second. Image:  REUTERS/KimberlyWhite

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It is a truism that computing continues to change our world. It shapes how objects are designed, what information we receive, how and where we work, and who we meet and do business with. And computing changes our understanding of the world around us and the universe beyond.

For example, while computers were initially used in weather forecasting as no more than an efficient way to assemble observations and do calculations, today our understanding of weather is almost entirely mediated by computational models.

Another example is biology. Where once research was done entirely in the lab (or in the wild) and then captured in a model, it often now begins in a predictive model, which then determines what might be explored in the real world.

The transformation that is due to computation is often described as digital disruption . But an aspect of this transformation that can easily be overlooked is that computing has been disrupting itself.

Evolution and revolution

Each wave of new computational technology has tended to lead to new kinds of systems, new ways of creating tools, new forms of data, and so on, which have often overturned their predecessors. What has seemed to be evolution is, in some ways, a series of revolutions.

But the development of computing technologies is more than a chain of innovation – a process that’s been a hallmark of the physical technologies that shape our world.

For example, there is a chain of inspiration from waterwheel, to steam engine, to internal combustion engine. Underlying this is a process of enablement. The industry of steam engine construction yielded the skills, materials and tools used in construction of the first internal combustion engines.

In computing, something richer is happening where new technologies emerge, not only by replacing predecessors, but also by enveloping them. Computing is creating platforms on which it reinvents itself, reaching up to the next platform.

Getting connected

Arguably, the most dramatic of these innovations is the web. During the 1970s and 1980s, there were independent advances in the availability of cheap, fast computing, of affordable disk storage and of networking.

Compute and storage were taken up in personal computers, which at that stage were standalone, used almost entirely for gaming and word processing. At the same time, networking technologies became pervasive in university computer science departments, where they enabled, for the first time, the collaborative development of software.

This was the emergence of a culture of open-source development, in which widely spread communities not only used common operating systems, programming languages and tools, but collaboratively contributed to them.

As networks spread, tools developed in one place could be rapidly promoted, shared and deployed elsewhere. This dramatically changed the notion of software ownership, of how software was designed and created, and of who controlled the environments we use.

The networks themselves became more uniform and interlinked, creating the global internet, a digital traffic infrastructure. Increases in computing power meant there was spare capacity for providing services remotely.

The falling cost of disk meant that system administrators could set aside storage to host repositories that could be accessed globally. The internet was thus used not just for email and chat forums (known then as news groups) but, increasingly, as an exchange mechanism for data and code.

This was in strong contrast to the systems used in business at that time, which were customised, isolated, and rigid.

With hindsight, the confluence of networking, compute and storage at the start of the 1990s, coupled with the open-source culture of sharing, seems almost miraculous. An environment ready for something remarkable, but without even a hint of what that thing might be.

The ‘superhighway’

It was to enhance this environment that then US Vice President Al Gore proposed in 1992 the “ information superhighway ”, before any major commercial or social uses of the internet had appeared.

Meanwhile, in 1990, researchers at CERN, including Tim Berners-Lee , created a system for storing documents and publishing them to the internet, which they called the world wide web .

As knowledge of this system spread on the internet (transmitted by the new model of open-source software systems), people began using it via increasingly sophisticated browsers. They also began to write documents specifically for online publication – that is, web pages.

As web pages became interactive and resources moved online, the web became a platform that has transformed society. But it also transformed computing.

With the emergence of the web came the decline of the importance of the standalone computer, dependent on local storage.

We all connect

The value of these systems is due to another confluence: the arrival on the web of vast numbers of users. For example, without behaviours to learn from, search engines would not work well, so human actions have become part of the system.

There are (contentious) narratives of ever-improving technology, but also an entirely unarguable narrative of computing itself being transformed by becoming so deeply embedded in our daily lives.

This is, in many ways, the essence of big data. Computing is being fed by human data streams: traffic data, airline trips, banking transactions, social media and so on.

The challenges of the discipline have been dramatically changed by this data, and also by the fact that the products of the data (such as traffic control and targeted marketing) have immediate impacts on people.

Software that runs robustly on a single computer is very different from that with a high degree of rapid interaction with the human world, giving rise to needs for new kinds of technologies and experts, in ways not evenly remotely anticipated by the researchers who created the technologies that led to this transformation.

Decisions that were once made by hand-coded algorithms are now made entirely by learning from data. Whole fields of study may become obsolete.

The discipline does indeed disrupt itself. And as the next wave of technology arrives (immersive environments? digital implants? aware homes?), it will happen again.

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Karunaratne, Indika & Atukorale, Ajantha & Perera, Hemamali. (2011). Surveillance of human- computer interactions: A way forward to detection of users' Psychological Distress. 2011 IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science and Engineering, CHUSER 2011. 10.1109/CHUSER.2011.6163779.

June 9, 2023 / 1 comment / Reading Time: ~ 12 minutes

The Digital Revolution: How Technology is Changing the Way We Communicate and Interact

This article examines the impact of technology on human interaction and explores the ever-evolving landscape of communication. With the rapid advancement of technology, the methods and modes of communication have undergone a significant transformation. This article investigates both the positive and negative implications of this digitalization. Technological innovations, such as smartphones, social media, and instant messaging apps, have provided unprecedented accessibility and convenience, allowing people to connect effortlessly across distances. However, concerns have arisen regarding the quality and authenticity of these interactions. The article explores the benefits of technology, including improved connectivity, enhanced information sharing, and expanded opportunities for collaboration. It also discusses potential negative effects including a decline in in-person interactions, a loss of empathy, and an increase in online anxiety. This article tries to expand our comprehension of the changing nature of communication in the digital age by exposing the many ways that technology has an impact on interpersonal interactions. It emphasizes the necessity of intentional and thoughtful communication techniques to preserve meaningful connections in a society that is becoming more and more reliant on technology.

Introduction:

Technology has significantly transformed our modes of communication and interaction, revolutionizing the way we connect with one another over the past few decades. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has acted as a catalyst, expediting this transformative process, and necessitating our exclusive reliance on digital tools for socializing, working, and learning. Platforms like social media and video conferencing have emerged in recent years, expanding our options for virtual communication. The impact of these changes on our lives cannot be ignored. In this article, we will delve into the ways in which technology has altered our communication and interaction patterns and explore the consequences of these changes for our relationships, mental well-being, and society.

To gain a deeper understanding of this topic, I have conducted interviews and surveys, allowing us to gather firsthand insights from individuals of various backgrounds. Additionally, we will compare this firsthand information with the perspectives shared by experts in the field. By drawing on both personal experiences and expert opinions, we seek to provide a comprehensive analysis of how technology influences our interpersonal connections. Through this research, we hope to get a deeper comprehension of the complex interactions between technology and people, enabling us to move mindfully and purposefully through the rapidly changing digital environment.

The Evolution of Communication: From Face-to-Face to Digital Connections:

In the realm of communication, we have various mediums at our disposal, such as face-to-face interactions, telephone conversations, and internet-based communication. According to Nancy Baym, an expert in the field of technology and human connections, face-to-face communication is often regarded as the most personal and intimate, while the phone provides a more personal touch than the internet. She explains this in her book Personal Connections in the Digital Age by stating, “Face-to-face is much more personal; phone is personal as well, but not as intimate as face-to-face… Internet would definitely be the least personal, followed by the phone (which at least has the vocal satisfaction) and the most personal would be face-to-face” (Baym 2015).  These distinctions suggest that different communication mediums are perceived to have varying levels of effectiveness in conveying emotion and building relationships. This distinction raises thought-provoking questions about the impact of technology on our ability to forge meaningful connections. While the internet offers unparalleled convenience and connectivity, it is essential to recognize its limitations in reproducing the depth of personal interaction found in face-to-face encounters. These limitations may be attributed to the absence of nonverbal cues, such as facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice, which are vital elements in understanding and interpreting emotions accurately.

Traditionally, face-to-face interactions held a prominent role as the primary means of communication, facilitating personal and intimate connections. However, the rise of technology has brought about significant changes, making communication more convenient but potentially less personal. The rise of phones, instant messaging, and social media platforms has revolutionized how we connect with others. While these digital tools offer instant connectivity and enable us to bridge geographical distances, they introduce a layer of blockage that may impact the depth and quality of our interactions. It is worth noting that different communication mediums have their strengths and limitations. Phone conversations, for instance, retain a certain level of personal connection through vocal interactions, allowing for the conveyance of emotions and tones that text-based communication may lack. However, even with this advantage, phone conversations still fall short of the depth and richness found in face-to-face interactions, as they lack visual cues and physical presence.

Internet-based communication, on the other hand, is considered the least personal medium. Online interactions often rely on text-based exchanges, which may not fully capture the nuances of expression, tone, and body language. While the internet offers the ability to connect with a vast network of individuals and share information on a global scale, it may not facilitate the same depth and authenticity that in-person or phone conversations can provide. As a result, establishing meaningful connections and building genuine relationships in an online setting can be challenging. Research and observations support these ideas. Figure 1. titled “Social Interaction after Electronic Media Use,” shows the potential impact of electronic media on social interaction (source: ResearchGate). This research highlights the need to carefully consider the effects of technology on our interpersonal connections. While technology offers convenience and connectivity, it is essential to strike a balance, ensuring that we do not sacrifice the benefits of face-to-face interactions for the sake of digital convenience.

Figure 1:  Increased reliance on electronic media has led to a noticeable decrease in social interaction.

The Limitations and Effects of Digital Communication

In today’s digital age, the limitations and effects of digital communication are becoming increasingly evident. While the phone and internet offer undeniable benefits such as convenience and the ability to connect with people regardless of geographical distance, they fall short in capturing the depth and richness of a face-to-face conversation. The ability to be in the same physical space as the person we’re communicating with, observing their facial expressions, body language, and truly feeling their presence, is something unique and irreplaceable.

Ulrike Schultze, in her thought-provoking TED Talk titled “How Social Media Shapes Identity,” delves further into the impact of digital communication on our lives by stating, “we construct the technology, but the technology also constructs us. We become what technology allows us to become” (Schultze 2015). This concept highlights how our reliance on digital media for interaction has led to a transformation in how we express ourselves and relate to others.

The influence of social media has been profound in shaping our communication patterns and interpersonal dynamics. Research conducted by Kalpathy Subramanian (2017) examined the influence of social media on interpersonal communication, highlighting the changes it brings to the way we interact and express ourselves (Subramanian 2017). The study found that online communication often involves the use of abbreviations, emoticons, and hashtags, which have become embedded in our online discourse. These digital communication shortcuts prioritize speed and efficiency, but they also contribute to a shift away from the physical action of face-to-face conversation, where nonverbal cues and deeper emotional connections can be fostered.

Additionally, the study emphasizes the impact of social media on self-presentation and identity construction. With the rise of platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, individuals have a platform to curate and present themselves to the world. This online self-presentation can influence how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us, potentially shaping our identities in the process. The study further suggests that the emphasis on self-presentation and the pressure to maintain a certain image on social media can lead to increased stress and anxiety among users.

Interviews:

I conducted interviews with individuals from different age groups to gain diverse perspectives on how technology and social media have transformed the way we connect with others. By exploring the experiences of a 21-year-old student and an individual in their 40s, we can better understand the evolving dynamics of interpersonal communication in the digital age. These interviews shed light on the prevalence of digital communication among younger generations, their preference for convenience, and the concerns raised by individuals from older age groups regarding the potential loss of deeper emotional connections.

When I asked the 21-year-old classmate about how technology has changed the way they interact with people in person, they expressed, “To be honest, I spend more time texting, messaging, or posting on social media than actually talking face-to-face with others. It’s just so much more convenient.” This response highlights the prevalence of digital communication among younger generations and their preference for convenience over traditional face-to-face interactions. It suggests that technology has significantly transformed the way young people engage with others, with a greater reliance on virtual interactions rather than in-person conversations. Additionally, the mention of convenience as a driving factor raises questions about the potential trade-offs in terms of depth and quality of interpersonal connections.

To gain insight from an individual in their 40s, I conducted another interview. When asked about their experiences with technology and social media, they shared valuable perspectives. They mentioned that while they appreciate the convenience and accessibility offered by technology, they also expressed concerns about its impact on interpersonal connections. They emphasized the importance of face-to-face interactions in building genuine relationships and expressed reservations about the potential loss of deeper emotional connections in digital communication. Additionally, they discussed the challenges of adapting to rapid technological advancements and the potential generational divide in communication preferences.

Comparing the responses from both interviews, it is evident that there are generational differences in the perception and use of technology for communication. While the 21-year-old classmate emphasized convenience as a primary factor in favor of digital communication, the individual in their 40s highlighted the importance of face-to-face interactions and expressed concerns about the potential loss of meaningful connections in the digital realm. This comparison raises questions about the potential impact of technology on the depth and quality of interpersonal relationships across different age groups. It also invites further exploration into how societal norms and technological advancements shape individuals’ preferences and experiences.

Overall, the interviews revealed a shift towards digital communication among both younger and older individuals, with varying perspectives. While convenience and connectivity are valued, concerns were raised regarding the potential drawbacks, including the pressure to maintain an idealized online presence and the potential loss of genuine connections. It is evident that technology and social media have transformed the way we communicate and interact with others, but the interviews also highlighted the importance of maintaining a balance and recognizing the value of face-to-face interactions in fostering meaningful relationships.

I have recently conducted a survey with my classmates to gather insights on how technology and social media have influenced communication and interaction among students in their daily lives. Although the number of responses is relatively small, the collected data allows us to gain a glimpse into individual experiences and perspectives on this matter.

One of the questions asked in the survey was how often students rely on digital communication methods, such as texting, messaging, or social media, in comparison to engaging in face-to-face conversations. The responses indicated a clear trend towards increased reliance on digital communication, with 85% of participants stating that they frequently use digital platforms as their primary means of communication. This suggests a significant shift away from traditional face-to-face interactions, highlighting the pervasive influence of technology in shaping our communication habits.

Furthermore, the survey explored changes in the quality of interactions and relationships due to the increased use of technology and social media. Interestingly, 63% of respondents reported that they had noticed a decrease in the depth and intimacy of their connections since incorporating more digital communication into their lives. Many participants expressed concerns about the difficulty of conveying emotions effectively through digital channels and the lack of non-verbal cues that are present in face-to-face interactions. It is important to note that while the survey results provide valuable insights into individual experiences, they are not representative of the entire student population. The small sample size limits the generalizability of the findings. However, the data collected does shed light on the potential impact of technology and social media on communication and interaction patterns among students.

Expanding on the topic, I found an insightful figure from Business Insider that sheds light on how people utilize their smartphones (Business Insider). Figure 2. illustrates the average smartphone owner’s daily time spent on various activities. Notably, communication activities such as texting, talking, and social networking account for a significant portion, comprising 59% of phone usage. This data reinforces the impact of digital communication on our daily lives, indicating the substantial role it plays in shaping our interactions with others.  Upon comparing this research with the data, I have gathered, a clear trend emerges, highlighting that an increasing number of individuals primarily utilize their smartphones for communication and interaction purposes.

Figure 2: The breakdown of daily smartphone usage among average users clearly demonstrates that the phone is primarily used for interactions.

The Digital Make Over:

In today’s digital age, the impact of technology on communication and interaction is evident, particularly in educational settings. As a college student, I have witnessed the transformation firsthand, especially with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The convenience of online submissions for assignments has led to a growing trend of students opting to skip physical classes, relying on the ability to submit their work remotely. Unfortunately, this shift has resulted in a decline in face-to-face interactions and communication among classmates and instructors.

The decrease in physical attendance raises concerns about the potential consequences for both learning and social connections within the academic community. Classroom discussions, collaborative projects, and networking opportunities are often fostered through in-person interactions. By limiting these experiences, students may miss out on valuable learning moments, diverse perspectives, and the chance to establish meaningful connections with their peers and instructors.

Simon Lindgren, in his thought-provoking Ted Talk , “Media Are Not Social, but People Are,” delves deeper into the effects of technology and social media on our interactions. Lindgren highlights a significant point by suggesting that while technology may have the potential to make us better individuals, we must also recognize its potential pitfalls. Social media, for instance, can create filter bubbles that limit our exposure to diverse viewpoints, making us less in touch with reality and more narrow-minded. This cautionary reminder emphasizes the need to approach social media thoughtfully, seeking out diverse perspectives and avoiding the pitfalls of echo chambers. Furthermore, it is crucial to strike a balance between utilizing technology for educational purposes and embracing the benefits of in-person interactions. While technology undoubtedly facilitates certain aspects of education, such as online learning platforms and digital resources, we must not overlook the importance of face-to-face communication. In-person interactions allow for nuanced non-verbal cues, deeper emotional connections, and real-time engagement that contribute to a more comprehensive learning experience.

A study conducted by Times Higher Education delved into this topic, providing valuable insights. Figure 3. from the study illustrates a significant drop in attendance levels after the pandemic’s onset. Undeniably, technology played a crucial role in facilitating the transition to online learning. However, it is important to acknowledge that this shift has also led to a decline in face-to-face interactions, which have long been regarded as essential for effective communication and relationship-building. While technology continues to evolve and reshape the educational landscape, it is imperative that we remain mindful of its impact on communication and interaction. Striking a balance between digital tools and in-person engagement can help ensure that we leverage the benefits of technology while preserving the richness of face-to-face interactions. By doing so, we can foster a holistic educational experience that encompasses the best of both worlds and cultivates meaningful connections among students, instructors, and the academic community.

Figure 3:  This graph offers convincing proof that the COVID-19 pandemic and the extensive use of online submission techniques are to blame for the sharp reduction in in-person student attendance.

When asked about the impact of online submissions for assignments on physical attendance in classes, the survey revealed mixed responses. While 73% of participants admitted that the convenience of online submissions has led them to skip classes occasionally, 27% emphasized the importance of in-person attendance for better learning outcomes and social interactions. This finding suggests that while technology offers convenience, it also poses challenges in maintaining regular face-to-face interactions, potentially hindering educational and social development, and especially damaging the way we communicate and interact with one another. Students are doing this from a young age, and it comes into huge effect once they are trying to enter the work force and interact with others. When examining the survey data alongside the findings from Times Higher Education, striking similarities become apparent regarding how students approach attending classes in person with the overall conclusion being a massive decrease in students attending class which hinders the chance for real life interaction and communication. the convenience and instant gratification provided by technology can create a sense of detachment and impatience in interpersonal interactions. Online platforms allow for quick and immediate responses, and individuals can easily disconnect or switch between conversations. This can result in a lack of attentiveness and reduced focus on the person with whom one is communicating, leading to a superficial engagement that may hinder the establishment of genuine connections.

Conclusion:

Ultimately, the digital revolution has profoundly transformed the way we communicate and interact with one another. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this transformation, leading to increased reliance on digital tools for socializing, working, and learning. While technology offers convenience and connectivity, it also introduces limitations and potential drawbacks. The shift towards digital communication raises concerns about the depth and quality of our connections, as well as the potential loss of face-to-face interactions. However, it is essential to strike a balance between digital and in-person engagement, recognizing the unique value of physical presence, non-verbal cues, and deeper emotional connections that face-to-face interactions provide. By navigating the digital landscape with mindfulness and intentionality, we can harness the transformative power of technology while preserving and nurturing the essential elements of human connection.

Moving forward, it is crucial to consider the impact of technology on our relationships, mental well-being, and society. As technology continues to evolve, we must be cautious of its potential pitfalls, such as the emphasis on self-presentation, the potential for increased stress and anxiety, and the risk of forgetting how to interact in person. Striking a balance between digital and face-to-face interactions can help ensure that technology enhances, rather than replaces, genuine human connections. By prioritizing meaningful engagement, valuing personal interactions, and leveraging the benefits of technology without compromising the depth and quality of our relationships, we can navigate the digital revolution in a way that enriches our lives and fosters authentic connections.

References:

Ballve, M. (2013, June 5). How much time do we really spend on our smartphones every day? Business Insider. Retrieved April 27, 2023. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-time-do-we-spend-on-smartphones-2013-6

Baym, N. (2015). Personal Connections in the Digital Age (2nd ed.). Polity.

Karunaratne, Indika & Atukorale, Ajantha & Perera, Hemamali. (2011). Surveillance of human-       computer interactions: A way forward to detection of users’ Psychological Distress. 2011 IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science and Engineering, CHUSER 2011.             10.1109/CHUSER.2011.6163779.  https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Social-interaction-vs-electronic-media-use-Hours-per-day-of-face-to-face-social_fig1_254056654

Lindgren, S. (2015, May 20). Media are not social, but people are | Simon Lindgren | TEDxUmeå . YouTube. Retrieved April 27, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ5S7VIWE6k

Ross, J., McKie, A., Havergal, C., Lem, P., & Basken, P. (2022, October 24). Class attendance plummets post-Covid . Times Higher Education (THE). Retrieved April 27, 2023, from https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/class-attendance-plummets-post-covid

Schultze, U. (2015, April 23). How social media shapes identity | Ulrike Schultze | TEDxSMU . YouTube. Retrieved April 27, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSpyZor-Byk

Subramanian, Dr. K .R. “Influence of Social Media in Interpersonal Communication – Researchgate.” ResearchGate.Net , www.researchgate.net/profile/Kalpathy-Subramanian/publication/319422885_Influence_of_Social_Media_in_Interpersonal_Communication/links/59a96d950f7e9b2790120fea/Influence-of-Social-Media-in-Interpersonal-Communication.pdf. Accessed 12 May 2023 .

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Societies have long had a desire to find effective ways to report environmental dangers and opportunities; circulate opinions, facts, and ideas; pass along knowledge, heritage, and lore; communicate expectations to new members; entertain in an expansive manner; and broaden commerce and trade (Schramm). The primary challenge has been to find ways to communicate messages to as many people as possible. Our need-to-know prompted innovative ways to get messages to the masses.

Before writing, humans relied on oral traditions to pass on information. “It was only in the 1920s-according to the Oxford English Dictionary-that people began to speak of 'the media’ and a generation later, in the 1950s, of a ‘communication revolution’, but a concern with the means of communication is very much older than that” (Briggs & Burke 1). Oral and written communication played a major role in ancient cultures. These oral cultures used stories to document the past and impart cultural standards, traditions, and knowledge. With the development of alphabets around the world over 5000 years ago, written language with ideogrammatic (picture-based) alphabets like hieroglyphics started to change how cultures communicated.

Still, written communication remained ambiguous and did not reach the masses until the Greeks and Romans resolved this by establishing a syllabic alphabet representing sounds. But, without something to write on, written language was inefficient. Eventually, paper making processes were perfected in China, which spread throughout Europe via trade routes (Baran). Mass communication was not quick, but it was far-reaching (Briggs & Burke). This forever altered how cultures saved and transmitted cultural knowledge and values. Any political or social movement throughout the ages can be traced to the development and impact of the printing press and movable metal type (Steinberg). With his technique, Guttenberg could print more than a single page of specific text. By making written communication more available to larger numbers of people, mass printing became responsible for giving voice to the masses and making information available to common folks (McLuhan & Fiore). McLuhan argued that Gutenberg’s evolution of the printing press as a form of mass communication had profound and lasting effects on culture, perhaps the most significant invention in human history.

Mass Communication Study Then

In 1949, Carl I. Hovland, Arthur A. Lumsdaine, and Fred D. Sheffield wrote the book Experiments on Mass Communication. They looked at two kinds of films the Army used to train soldiers. First, they examined orientation and training films such as the “Why We Fight” that were intended to teach facts to the soldiers, as well as generate a positive response from them for going to war. The studies determined that significant learning did take place by the soldiers from the films, but primarily with factual items. The Army was disappointed with the results that showed that the orientation films did not do an effective job in generating the kind of positive responses they desired from the soldiers. Imagine, people were not excited about going to war.

With the transition to the industrial age in the 18th century, large populations headed to urban areas, creating mass audiences of all economic classes seeking information and entertainment. Printing technology was at the heart of modernization WHICH led to magazines, newspapers, the telegraph, and the telephone. At the turn of the century (1900), pioneers like Thomas Edison, Theodore Puskas, and Nikola Tesla literally electrified the world and mass communication. With the addition of motion pictures and radio in the early 1900s, and television in the 40s and 50s, the world increasingly embraced the foundations of today’s mass communication. In the 1970s cable started challenging over-the-air broadcasting and traditional program distribution making the United States a wired nation. In 2014, there was an estimated 116.3 million homes in America that own a TV (Nielson, 2014 Advance National TV Household Universe Estimate). While traditionally these televisions would display only the programs that are chosen to be broadcast by cable providers, more and more households have chosen to become more conscious media consumers and actively choose what they watch through alternative viewing options like streaming video.

Today, smart T.V.'s and streaming devices have taken over the market. Many American households have multiple devices – especially smartphones. A third of American households have three or more smartphones, compared with 23% that have three or more desktops, 17% that have three or more tablets and only 7% that have three or more streaming media devices. These new forms of broadcasting have created a digital revolution. Thanks to Netflix and other streaming services we are no longer subjected to advertisements during our shows. Similarly, streaming services like Hulu provide the most recent episodes as they appear on cable that viewers can watch any time. These services provide instant access to entire seasons of shows (which can result in binge watching).

The Information Age eventually began to replace the ideals of the industrial age. In 1983 Time Magazine named the PC the first "Machine of the Year." Just over a decade later, PCs outsold televisions. Then, in 2006, Time Magazine named “you” as the person of the year for your use of technology to broaden communication. "You" took advantage of changes in global media. Chances are that you, your friends, and family spend hours engaged in data-mediated communication such as emailing, texting, or participating in various form of social media. Romero points out that, “The Net has transformed the way we work, the way we get in contact with others, our access to information, our levels of privacy and indeed notions as basic and deeply rooted in our culture as those of time and space” (88). Social media has also had a large impact in social movements across the globe in recent years by providing the average person with the tools to reach wide audiences around the world for the first time in history.

If you're reading this for a college class, you may belong to the millennial or Z generation. Free wifi, apps, alternative news sources, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and Twitter have become a way of life. Can you imagine a world without communication technology? How would you find out the name of that song stuck in your head? If you wanted to spontaneously meet up with a friend for lunch, how would you let them know? Mass communication has become such an integral part of our daily lives, most people probably could not function through the day without it. What started as email quickly progressed to chat rooms and basic blogs, such as LiveJournal. From there, we saw the rise and fall of the first widely used social media platform, Myspace. Though now just a shadow of the social media powerhouse it once was, Myspace paved the way for social media to enter the mainstream in forms of websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Snapchat, and Instagram. Facebook has evolved into a global social media site. It’s available in 37 languages and has over 2.07 billion users--That's 1/4 of the world's population. Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook in 2005 while studying at Harvard University, and it has universally changed the way we communicate, interact, and share our lives with friends, family, and acquaintances. Many people argue about the good and bad qualities of having a Facebook profile, it can be looked at as your “digital footprint” in social media. While Facebook is a platform to connect socially, it has also received tremendous criticism for its use as a platform for influencing geopolitics, including the 2016 US President election. Here's a short YouTube video from rapper/poet Prince Ea about Facebook and the effects of social media on society.

Another example of mainstream social media is Twitter. Twitter allows for quick 280 character or less status updates (called tweets) for registered users. Tweets can be sent from any device with access to internet in a fast, simple way that connects with a number of people, whether they be family, friends or followers. Twitter's microblogging format allows for people to share their daily thoughts and experiences on a broad and sometimes public stage. The simplicity of Twitter allows it to be used as a tool for entertainment and blogging, but also as a way of organizing social movements and sharing breaking news. President Donald Trump is fond of using Twitter as a means of communicating, a first in Presidential politics.

Mass Communication Study Now

With new forms of communication emerging rapidly, it is important to note the corresponding changes to formal language and slang terms. UrbanDictionary.com is a famous site that can introduce any newbie to the slang world by presenting them various definitions for a term they don’t recognize, describe its background, and provide examples for how it’s used in context. For example, one of the most popular definitions claims that the word ‘ hella ’ is said to originate from the streets of San Francisco in the Hunters Point neighborhood. “It is commonly used in place of ‘really’ or ‘very’ when describing something.”

Snapchat is a newer social media platform used by more and more people every day. The function of Snapchat allows the user to send a photo (with the option of text) that expires after a few seconds. It can be looked at like a digital self-destructing note you would see in an old spy movie. Unlike its competitors, Snapchat is used in a less professional manner, emphasizing humor and spontaneity over information efficiency. Contrary to Facebook, there is no pressure to pose, or display your life. Rather, it is more spontaneous. It’s like the stranger you wink at in the street or a hilarious conversation with a best friend.

In this age of information overload, multiple news sources, high-speed connections, and social networking, life seems unimaginable without mass communication. Can you relate to your parents’ stories about writing letters to friends, family, or their significant others? Today, when trying to connect with someone we have a variety ways of contacting them; we can call, text, email, Facebook message, tweet, and/or Snapchat; the options are almost endless and ever-changing. Society today is in the midst of a technological revolution. Only a few years ago families were arguing over landline internet cable use and the constant disruptions from incoming phone calls. Now, we have the ability to browse the web anytime on smart phones. Since the printing press, mass communication has literally changed the ways we think and interact as humans. We take so much for granted as “new technologies are assimilated so rapidly in U.S. culture that historic perspectives are often lost in the process” (Fidler 1). With all of this talk and research about mass communication, what functions does it serve for us?

Mass Communication Now

The expansion of mass media brings new challenges and opportunities to ensure inclusion, so that all have access to the information available through these mediums. Making information accessible to all is important and necessary. Websites have begun using disability accessible features to allow as many people as possible access to online communication. Check out this article on how to make sure your website is disability friendly.

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Article Contents

Constraints on internet research, rethinking definitions, viewing the internet as mass medium, applying theories to cmc, critical mass, interactivity, uses and gratifications, social presence and media richness theory, network approaches.

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The Internet as Mass Medium

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Merrill Morris, Christine Ogan, The Internet as Mass Medium, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication , Volume 1, Issue 4, 1 March 1996, JCMC141, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.1996.tb00174.x

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The Internet has become impossible to ignore in the past two years. Even people who do not own a computer and have no opportunity to “surf the net” could not have missed the news stories about the Internet, many of which speculate about its effects on the ever-increasing number of people who are on line. Why, then, have communications researchers, historically concerned with exploring the effects of mass media, nearly ignored the Internet? With 25 million people estimated to be communicating on the Internet, should communication researchers now consider this network of networks [1] a mass medium? Until recently, mass communications researchers have overlooked not only the Internet but the entire field of computer-mediated communication, staying instead with the traditional forms of broadcast and print media that fit much more conveniently into models for appropriate research topics and theories of mass communication.

However, this paper argues that if mass communications researchers continue to largely disregard the research potential of the Internet, their theories about communication will become less useful. Not only will the discipline be left behind, it will also miss an opportunity to explore and rethink answers to some of the central questions of mass communications research, questions that go to the heart of the model of source-message-receiver with which the field has struggled. This paper proposes a conceptualization of the Internet as a mass medium, based on revised ideas of what constitutes a mass audience and a mediating technology. The computer as a new communication technology opens a space for scholars to rethink assumptions and categories, and perhaps even to find new insights into traditional communication technologies.

This paper looks at the Internet, rather than computer-mediated communication as a whole, in order to place the new medium within the context of other mass media. Mass media researchers have traditionally organized themselves around a specific communications medium. The newspaper, for instance, is a more precisely defined area of interest than printing-press-mediated communication, which embraces more specialized areas, such as company brochures or wedding invitations. Of course, there is far more than a semantic difference between conceptualizing a new communication technology by its communicative form than by the technology itself. The tradition of mass communication research has accepted newspapers, radio, and television as its objects of study for social, political, and economic reasons. As technology changes and media converge, those research categories must become flexible.

Mass communications researchers have overlooked the potential of the Internet for several reasons. The Internet was developed in bits and pieces by hobbyists, students, and academics ( Rheingold, 1994 ). It didn't fit researchers' ideas about mass media, locked, as they have been, into models of print and broadcast media. Computer-mediated communication (CMC) at first resembled interpersonal communication and was relegated to the domain of other fields, such as education, management information science, and library science. These fields, in fact, have been doing research into CMC for nearly 20 years ( Dennis & Gallupe, 1993 ; O'Shea & Self, 1983 ), and many of their ideas about CMC have proven useful in looking at the phenomenon as a mass medium. Both education and business researchers have seen the computer as a technology through which communication was mediated, and both lines of research have been concerned with the effects of this new medium.

Disciplinary lines have long kept researchers from seeing the whole picture of the communication process. Cathcart and Gumpert (1983) recognized this problem when they noted how speech communication definitions “have minimized the role of media and channel in the communication process” (p. 267), even as mass communication definitions disregarded the ways media function in interpersonal communication: “We are quite convinced that the traditional division of communication study into interpersonal, group and public, and mass communication is inadequate because it ignores the pervasiveness of media” (p. 268).

The major constraint on doing mass communication research into the Internet, however, has been theoretical. In searching for theories to apply to group software systems, researchers in MIS have recognized that communication studies needed new theoretical models: “The emergence of new technologies such as GSS (Group Support Systems, software that allows group decision-making), which combine aspects of both interpersonal interaction and mass media, presents something of a challenge to communication theory. With new technologies, the line between the various contexts begins to blur, and it is unclear that models based on mass media or face-to-face contexts are adequate” ( Poole & Jackson, 1993 , p. 282).

Not only have theoretical models constrained research, but the most basic assumptions behind researchers' theories of mass media effects have kept them from being able to see the Internet as a new mass medium. DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach's attitude toward computers in the fifth edition of their Theories of Mass Communication (1989) is typical. They compare computers to telephones, dismissing the idea of computer communication as mass communication: “Even if computer literacy were to become universal, and even if every household had a personal computer equipped with a modem, it is difficult to see how a new system of mass communication could develop from this base alone” (pp. 335-336). The fact that DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach find it difficult to envision this development may well be a result of their own constrained perspective. Taking the telephone analogy a step further, Lana Rakow (1992) points out that the lack of research on the telephone was due in part to researchers' inability to see it as a mass medium. The telephone also became linked to women, who embraced the medium as a way to overcome social isolation. [2]

However, a new communication technology can throw the facades of the old into sharp relief. Marshall McLuhan (1960) recognized this when, speaking of the computer, he wrote, “The advent of a new medium often reveals the lineaments and assumptions, as it were, of an old medium” (p. 567). In effect, a new communication technology may perform an almost postmodern function of making the unpresentable perceptible, as Lyotard (1983) might put it. In creating new configurations of sources, messages, and receivers, new communication technologies force researchers to examine their old definitions. What is a mass audience? What is a communication medium? How are messages mediated?

Daniel Bell (1960) recognized the slippery nature of the term mass society and how its many definitions lacked a sense of reality: “What strikes one about these varied uses of the concept of mass society is how little they reflect or relate to the complex, richly striated social relations of the real world” (p. 25). Similarly, the term mass media, with its roots in ideas of mass society, has always been difficult to define. There is much at stake in hanging on to traditional definitions of mass media, as shown in the considerable anxiety in recent years over the loss of the mass audience and its implications for the liberal pluralist state. The convergence of communication technologies, as represented by the computer, has set off this fear of demassification, as audiences become more and more fragmented. The political and social implications of mass audiences and mass media go beyond the scope of this paper, but the current uneasiness and discussion over the terms themselves seem to indicate that the old idea of the mass media has reached its limit ( Schudson, 1992 ; Warner, 1992 ).

Critical researchers have long questioned the assumptions implicit in traditional media effects definitions, looking instead to the social, economic, and historical contexts that gave rise to institutional conceptions of media. Such analysis, Fejes (1984) notes, can lead to another unquestioning set of assumptions about the media's ability to affect audiences. As Ang (1991) has pointed out, abandoning the idea of the mass media and their audiences impedes an investigation of media institutions' power to create messages that are consumed by real people. If the category of mass medium becomes too fuzzy to define, traditional effects researchers will be left without dependent variables, and critical scholars will have no means of discussing issues of social and political power.

A new communication technology such as the Internet allows scholars to rethink, rather than abandon, definitions and categories. When the Internet is conceptualized as a mass medium, what becomes clear is that neither mass nor medium can be precisely defined for all situations, but instead must be continually rearticulated depending on the situation. The Internet is a multifaceted mass medium, that is, it contains many different configurations of communication. Its varied forms show the connection between interpersonal and mass communication that has been an object of study since the two-step flow associated the two ( Lazarsfeld, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1944 ). Chaffee and Mutz (1988) have called for an exploration of this relationship that begins “with a theory that spells out what effects are of interest, and what aspects of communication might produce them” (p. 39). The Internet offers a chance to develop and to refine that theory.

How does it do this? Through its very nature. The Internet plays with the source-message-receiver features of the traditional mass communication model, sometimes putting them into traditional patterns, sometimes putting them into entirely new configurations. Internet communication takes many forms, from World Wide Web pages operated by major news organizations to Usenet groups discussing folk music to E-mail messages among colleagues and friends. The Internet's communication forms can be understood as a continuum. Each point in the traditional model of the communication process can, in fact, vary from one to a few to many on the Internet. Sources of the messages can range from one person in E-mail communication, to a social group in a Listserv or Usenet group, to a group of professional journalists in a World Wide Web page. The messages themselves can be traditional journalistic news stories created by a reporter and editor, stories created over a long period of time by many people, or simply conversations, such as in an Internet Relay Chat group. The receivers, or audiences, of these messages can also number from one to potentially millions, and may or may not move fluidly from their role as audience members to producers of messages.

Producers and audiences on the Internet can be grouped generally into four categories: (a) one-to-one asynchronous communication, such as E-mail; (b) many-to-many asynchronous communication, such as Usenet, electronic bulletin boards, and Listservers that require the receiver to sign up for a service or log on to a program to access messages around a particular topic or topics; (c) synchronous communication that can be one-to-one, one-to-few, or one-to-many and can be organized around a topic, the construction of an object, or role playing, such as MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons and their various transformations as MOOs, MUCKs and MUSHs), Internet Relay Chat and chat rooms on commercial services; and (d) asynchronous communication generally characterized by the receiver's need to seek out the site in order to access information, which may involve many-to-one, one-to-one, or one-to-many source-receiver relationships (e.g., Web sites, gophers, and FTP sites).

Reconceptualizing the audience for the communication that takes place on the Internet is a major problem, one that becomes increasingly important as commercial information providers enter the Internet in greater numbers. To date, thousands of commercial sources have created home pages or gopher sites for people to access their services or information about those services. As of September 1995, search tools on the Internet turned up as many as 123 different U.S. newspaper services and more than 1,300 magazine services with distinct web sites. Some newspapers seem to be creating home pages to mark their place in cyberspace until their managers determine how to make them commercially viable. Others may be moving to the Internet out of fear of the electronic competition. Thus, it remains difficult to envision the future of traditional mass media on the Internet-who will be the audience, how will that audience access the information and entertainment services, and what profit might be made from the services?

A parallel question investigates the impact of Internet communication on the audience. Mass communications researchers will want to examine information-seeking and knowledge gaps as well as a range of uses-and-gratifications-based questions concerning the audience. Since the Internet is also being used for entertainment as well as information, effects researchers will want to know whether the Internet is a functional equivalent of other entertainment media and whether there are negative effects in the distribution of pornography and verbal attacks (e.g., flaming and virtual rapes) on members of the audience. There are also questions of audience addiction to certain types of Internet communication and entertainment.

When the uses of the Internet as a mass medium are explored, questions arise about the nature of its communicative content. As commercial providers increase on the Internet, and more political information is provided, the problem of who sets the agenda for the new medium also becomes a concern.

Credibility is another issue with mass media. Traditional mass media make certain claims about the veracity of their information. The Internet makes few such claims at the moment, and it is possible that the concept of credibility will also change as a result. Recently, on a feminist newsnet group, an individual began to post what appeared to be off-base comments to a serious discussion of feminist issues. Several days later it was determined that “Mike” was a computer-generated personage and not a real contributor to the discussion at all. At present there is no way to know when the Mikes on the Internet are even real, let alone credible ( Ogan, 1993 ). Consequently, we wish to underscore the fundamental importance of this issue.

Traditional mass media have addressed the issue within their organizations, hiring editors and fact checkers to determine what information is accurate. Source credibility will vary on the Internet, with commercial media sites carrying relatively more credibility and unknown sources carrying less. A much greater burden will be placed on the user to determine how much faith to place in any given source.

Another question relates to the interchangeability of producers and receivers of content. One of the Internet's most widely touted advantages is that an audience member may also be a message producer. To what extent is that really the case? We may discover a fair amount about the producers of messages from the content of their electronic messages, but what about the lurkers? Who are they and how big is this group? To what extent do lurkers resemble the more passive audience of television sitcoms? And why do they remain lurkers and not also become information providers? Is there something about the nature of the medium that prevents their participation?

Other questions concern production of culture, social control, and political communication. Will the Internet ultimately be accessible to all? How are groups excluded from participation? Computers were originally created to wage war and have been developed in an extremely specific, exclusive culture. Can we trace those cultural influences in the way messages are produced on the Internet?

In an overview of research on computers in education, O'Shea and Self (1983) note that the learner-as-bucket theory had dominated. In this view, knowledge is like a liquid that is poured into the student, a metaphor similar to mass communication's magic-bullet theory. This brings up another aspect to consider in looking at mass communication research into CMC-the applicability of established theories and methodologies to the new medium. As new communication technologies are developed, researchers seem to use the patterns of research established for existing technologies to explain the uses and effects of the new media. Research in group communication, for example, has been used to examine the group uses of E-mail networks ( Sproull & Kiesler, 1991 ). Researchers have studied concepts of status, decision-making quality, social presence, social control, and group norms as they have been affected by a technology that permitted certain changes in group communication.

This kind of transfer of research patterns from one communication technology to another is not unusual. Wartella and Reeves (1985) studied the history of American mass communication research in the area of children and the media. With each new medium, the effects of content on children were discussed as a social problem in public debate. As Wartella and Reeves note, researchers responded to the public controversy over the adoption of a new media technology in American life.

In approaching the study of the Internet as a mass medium, the following established concepts seem to be useful starting points. Some of these have originated in the study of interpersonal or small group communication; others have been used to examine mass media. Some relate to the nature of the medium, while others focus on the audience for the medium.

This conceptual framework has been adopted from economists, physicists, and sociologists by organizational communication and diffusion of innovation scholars to better understand the size of the audience needed for a new technology to be considered successful and the nature of collective action as applied to electronic media use ( Markus, 1991 ; Oliver et al., 1985 ). For any medium to be considered a mass medium, and therefore economically viable to advertisers, a critical mass of adopters must be achieved. Interactive media only become useful as more and more people adopt, or as Rogers (1986) states, “the usefulness of a new communication system increases for all adopters with each additional adopter” (p. 120). Initially, the critical mass notion works against adoption, since it takes a number of other users to be seen as advantageous to adopt. For example, the telephone or an E-mail system was not particularly useful to the first adopters because most people were unable to receive their messages or converse with them. Valente (1995) notes that the critical mass is achieved when about 10 to 20 percent of the population has adopted the innovation. When this level has been reached, the innovation can be spread to the rest of the social system. Adoption of computers in U.S. households has well surpassed this figure, but the modem connections needed for Internet connection lag somewhat behind.

Because a collection of communication services-electronic bulletin boards, Usenet groups, E-mail, Internet Relay Chats, home pages, gophers, and so forth-comprise the Internet, the concept of critical mass on the Internet could be looked upon as a variable, rather than a fixed percentage of adopters. Fewer people are required for sustaining an Internet Relay Chat conference or a Multi-User Dungeon than may be required for an electronic bulletin board or another type of discussion group. As already pointed out, a relatively large number of E-mail users are required for any two people to engage in conversation, yet only those two people constitute the critical mass for any given conversation. For a bulletin board to be viable, its content must have depth and variety. If the audience who also serve as the source of information for the BBS is too small, the bulletin board cannot survive for lack of content. A much larger critical mass will be needed for such a group to maintain itself-perhaps as many as 100 or more. The discretionary data base, as defined by Connolly and Thorn (1991) is a “shared pool of data to which several participants may, if they choose, separately contribute information” (p. 221). If no one contributes, the data base cannot exist. It requires a critical mass of participants to carry the free riders in the system, thus supplying this public good to all members, participants, or free riders. Though applied to organizations, this refinement of the critical mass theory is a useful way of thinking about Listservs, electronic bulletin boards, Usenet groups, and other Internet services, where participants must hold up their end of the process through written contributions.

Each of these specific Internet services can be viewed as we do specific television stations, small town newspapers, or special interest magazines. None of these may reach a strictly mass audience, but in conjunction with all the other stations, newspapers, and magazines distributed in the country, they constitute mass media categories. So the Internet itself would be considered the mass medium, while the individual sites and services are the components of which this medium is comprised.

This concept has been assumed to be a natural attribute of interpersonal communication, but, as explicated by Rafaeli (1988) , it is more recently applied to all new media, from two-way cable to the Internet. From Rafaeli's perspective, the most useful basis of inquiry for interactivity would be one grounded in responsiveness. Rafaeli's definition of interactivity “recognizes three pertinent levels: two-way (noninteractive) communication, reactive (or quasi-interactive) communication, and fully interactive communication” (1988, p. 119). Anyone working to conceptualize Internet communication would do well to draw on this variable and follow Rafaeli's lead when he notes that the value of a focus on interactivity is that the concept cuts across the mass versus interpersonal distinctions usually made in the fields of inquiry. It is also helpful to consider interactivity to be variable in nature, increasing or decreasing with the particular Internet service in question.

Though research of mass media use from a uses-and-gratifications perspective has not been prevalent in the communication literature in recent years, it may help provide a useful framework from which to begin the work on Internet communication. Both Walther (1992b) and Rafaeli (1986) concur in this conclusion. The logic of the uses-and-gratifications approach, based in functional analysis, is derived from “(1) the social and psychological origins of (2) needs, which generate (3) expectations of (4) the mass media and other sources, which lead to (5) differential patterns of media exposure (or engagement in other activities), resulting in (7) other consequences, perhaps mostly unintended ones” ( Blumler and Katz, 1974 ).

Rosengren (1974) modified the original approach in one way by noting that the “needs” in the original model had to be perceived as problems and some potential solution to those problems needed to be perceived by the audience. Rafaeli (1986) regards the move away from effects research to a uses-and-gratifications approach as essential to the study of electronic bulletin boards (one aspect of the Internet medium). He is predisposed to examine electronic bulletin boards in the context of play or Ludenic theory, an extension of the uses-and-gratifications approach, which is clearly a purpose that drives much of Internet use by a wide spectrum of the population. Rafaeli summarizes the importance of this paradigm for electronic communication by noting uses-and-gratifications' comprehensive nature in a media environment where computers have not only home and business applications, but also work and play functions.

Additionally, the uses-and-gratifications approach presupposes a degree of audience activity, whether instrumental or ritualized. The concept of audience activity should be included in the study of Internet communication, and it already has been incorporated in one examination of the Cleveland Freenet ( Swift, 1989 ).

These approaches have been applied to CMC use by organizational communication researchers to account for interpersonal effects. But social presence theory stems from an attempt to determine the differential properties of various communication media, including mass media, in the degree of social cues inherent in the technology. In general, CMC, with its lack of visual and other nonverbal cues, is said to be extremely low in social presence in comparison to face-to-face communication ( Walther, 1992a ).

Media richness theory differentiates between lean and rich media by the bandwidth or number of cue systems within each medium. This approach ( Walther, 1992a ) suggests that because CMC is a lean channel, it is useful for simple or unequivocal messages, and also that it is more efficient “because shadow functions and coordinated interaction efforts are unnecessary. For receivers to understand clearly more equivocal information, information that is ambiguous, emphatic, or emotional, however, a richer medium should be used” (p. 57).

Unfortunately, much of the research on media richness and social presence has been one-shot experiments or field studies. Given the ambiguous results of such studies in business and education ( Dennis & Gallupe, 1993 ), it can be expected that over a longer time period, people who communicate on Usenets and bulletin boards will restore some of those social cues and thus make the medium richer than its technological parameters would lead us to expect. As Walther (1992a) argues: “It appears that the conclusion that CMC is less socioemotional or personal than face-to-face communication is based on incomplete measurement of the latter form, and it may not be true whatsoever, even in restricted laboratory settings” (p. 63). Further, he notes that though researchers recognize that nonverbal social context cues convey formality and status inequality, “they have reached their conclusion about CMC/face-to-face differences without actually observing the very non-verbal cues through which these effects are most likely to be performed” (p. 63).

Clearly, there is room for more work on the social presence and media richness of Internet communication. It could turn out that the Internet contains a very high degree of media richness relative to other mass media, to which it has insufficiently been compared and studied. Ideas about social presence also tend to disguise the subtle kinds of social control that goes on on the Net through language, such as flaming.

Grant (1993) has suggested that researchers approach new communication technologies through network analysis, to better address the issues of social influence and critical mass. Conceptualizing Internet communities as networks might be a very useful approach. As discussed earlier, old concepts of senders and receivers are inappropriate to the study of the Internet. Studying the network of users of any given Internet service can incorporate the concept of interactivity and the interchangeability of message producers and receivers. The computer allows a more efficient analysis of network communication, but researchers will need to address the ethical issues related to studying people's communication without their permission.

These are just a few of the core concepts and theoretical frameworks that should be applied to a mass communication perspective on Internet communication. Reconceptualizing the Internet from this perspective will allow researchers both to continue to use the structures of traditional media studies and to develop new ways of thinking about those structures. It is, finally, a question of taxonomy. Thomas Kuhn (1974) has noted the ways in which similarity and resemblance are important in creating scientific paradigms. As Kuhn points out, scientists facing something new “can often agree on the particular symbolic expression appropriate to it, even though none of them has seen that particular expression before” (p. 466). The problem becomes a taxonomic one: how to categorize, or, more importantly, how to avoid categorizing in a rigid, structured way so that researchers may see the slippery nature of ideas such as mass media, audiences, and communication itself.

 For a discussion of what the Internet is, See Request for Comment 1492 at: http://yoyo.cc.monash.edu/au/~mist/Folklore/RFC1462.html . The ‘network of networks’ description is taken from Krol, 1992.

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8.1: A Definition and Brief History of Mass Communication

Learning Objectives

• Define mass communication.
• Identify events that impacted the adaptation of mass media.
• Explain how different technological transitions have shaped media industries.
• Identify four roles the media perform in society.

A Brief History of Mass Media/Communication

“Well, how did I get here?” a baffled David Byrne sings in the Talking Heads song, “Once in a Lifetime.” The contemporary media landscape is so rich, deep, and multifaceted that it’s easy to imagine American media consumers asking themselves the same question. People can turn on their television and find 24-hour news channels, sports channels, as well as music videos, nature documentaries, and reality shows about everything from hoarders to fashion models. That’s not to mention movies available on-demand from cable providers. We watch television, film, and video available online for streaming or downloading from creators like Netflix and Hulu, curators like Tubi and Crunchyroll, or Network-specific like Disney+, CBS All Access, HBOmax, or NBC Peacock. The estimated total U.S. daily newspaper circulation (print and digital combined) in 2020 was 24.3 million for weekdays and 25.8 million for Sunday, each down 6% from the previous year.

Books and Newspapers

The printing press is a device that allows for the mass production of uniform printed matter, mainly text in the form of books, pamphlets and newspapers. It was created in China sometime during the first millennium with the oldest surviving document being  The  Diamond Sutra  from 868 A. D. The printing press revolutionized society in China before being further developed in Europe 600 years later by German Johannes Gutenberg when he created the Gutenberg press.

As Europeans colonized the land that would come to be called the United States of America, the newspaper was an essential medium. At first, newspapers helped the Europeans stay connected with events in their respective countries. But as a more common way of life started throughout the states newspapers helped give expression to a burgeoning “American” culture. Political scientist Benedict Anderson has argued that newspapers helped forge this sense of national identity by treating readers across the country as part of one unified group with common goals and values. Newspapers, he said, helped create an “imagined community.”

In the 1830s, the major daily newspapers faced a new threat with the rise of the penny press—newspapers that were low-priced broadsheets. These papers served as a cheaper, more sensational daily news source and privileged news of murder and adventure over the dry political news of the day. While earlier newspapers catered to a wealthier, more educated audience, the penny press attempted to reach a wide swath of readers through cheap prices and entertaining (often scandalous) stories. The penny press is the forerunner to today’s gossip tabloids.

Radio, Television, Film

In the early decades of the 20th century, the first major non-print forms of mass media—film and radio—exploded in popularity. Radios, which were less expensive than telephones and widely available by the 1920s, especially had the unprecedented ability to allow huge numbers of people to listen to the same event at the same time. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge’s pre-election speech reached more than 20 million people. Radio was a boon for advertisers, who now had access to a large and captive audience. An early advertising consultant claimed that the early days of radio were “a glorious opportunity for the advertising man to spread his sales propaganda” thanks to “a countless audience, sympathetic, pleasure-seeking, enthusiastic, curious, interested, approachable in the privacy of their homes (Briggs & Burke, 2005).

The reach of radio also further helped forge an American culture. The medium was able to downplay regional differences and encourage a unified sense of the American lifestyle—a lifestyle that was increasingly driven and defined by consumer purchases. “Americans in the 1920s were the first to wear ready-made, exact-size clothing…to play electric phonographs, to use electric vacuum cleaners, to listen to commercial radio broadcasts, and to drink fresh orange juice year-round.

The post-World War II era in the United States was marked by prosperity, and by the introduction of a seductive new form of mass communication: Television. In 1946, there were about 17,000 televisions in the entire United States. Within seven years, two-thirds of American households owned at least one set. As the United States’ gross national product (GNP) doubled in the 1950s, and again in the 1960s, the American home became firmly ensconced as a consumer unit.

Broadcast television was the dominant form of mass media. From the ’60s to ’90s there were just three major networks (ABC, NBC, CBS), and they controlled over 90 percent of the news programs, live events, and sitcoms viewed by Americans. On some nights, close to half the nation watched the same show! Some social critics argued that television was fostering a homogenous, conformist culture by reinforcing ideas about what “normal” American life looked like. But television also contributed to the counterculture of the 1960s. The Vietnam War was the nation’s first televised military conflict, and nightly images of war footage and war protestors helped intensify the nation’s internal conflicts.

Broadcast technology, including radio and television, had such a hold of the American imagination that newspapers and other print media found themselves having to adapt to the new media landscape. Print media was more durable and easily archived, and allowed users more flexibility in terms of time—once a person had purchased a magazine, they could read it whenever and wherever they’d like. Broadcast media, in contrast, usually aired programs on a fixed schedule, which allowed it to both provide a sense of immediacy but also impermanence—until the advent of digital video recorders (DVRs) in the 21st century, it was impossible to pause and rewind a television broadcast.

The media world faced drastic changes once again in the 1980s and 1990s with the spread of cable television. During the early decades of television, viewers had a limited number of channels from which to choose. In 1975, the three major networks accounted for 93 percent of all television viewing. By 2004, however, this share had dropped to 28.4 percent of total viewing, thanks to the spread of cable television. Cable providers allowed viewers a wide menu of choices, including channels specifically tailored to people who wanted to watch only golf, weather, classic films, sermons, or videos of sharks. Still, until the mid-1990s, television was dominated by the three large networks. The Telecommunications Act of 1996, an attempt to foster competition by deregulating the industry, actually resulted in many mergers and buyouts of small companies by large companies. The broadcast spectrum in many places was in the hands of a few large corporations. In 2003, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) loosened regulation even further, allowing a single company to own 45 percent of a single market (up from 25 percent in 1982).

Technological Transitions Shape Media Industries

New media technologies both spring from and cause cultural change. For this reason, it can be difficult to neatly sort the evolution of media into clear causes and effects. Technological innovations such as the steam engine, electricity, wireless communication, and the Internet have all had lasting and significant effects on American culture. Electricity altered the way people thought about time, since work and play were no longer dependent on the daily rhythms of sunrise and sunset. Wireless communication collapsed distance. The Internet revolutionized the way we store and retrieve information.

The contemporary media age can trace its origins back to the electrical telegraph, patented in the United States by Samuel Morse in 1837. Thanks to the telegraph, communication was no longer linked to the physical transportation of messages. Suddenly, it didn’t matter whether a message needed to travel five or five hundred miles. Telegraph lines began to stretch across the globe, making their own kind of worldwide web.

Not long after the telegraph, wireless communication (which eventually led to the development of radio, television, and other broadcast media) emerged as an extension of telegraph technology. Although many 19th-century inventors, including Nikola Tesla, had a hand in early wireless experiments, it was Italian-born Guglielmo Marconi who is recognized as the developer of the first practical wireless radio system. This mysterious invention, where sounds seemed to magically travel through the air, captured the world’s imagination. Early radio was used for military communication, but soon the technology entered the home.

The 19th-century development of photographic technologies would lead to the later innovations of cinema and television. As with wireless technology, several inventors independently came up with photography at the same time, among them, the French inventors, Joseph Niepce and Louis Daguerre, and British scientist William Henry Fox Talbot. In the United States, George Eastman developed the Kodak camera in 1888. Moving pictures were first seen around the turn of the century, with the first U.S. projection hall opening in Pittsburgh in 1905. By the end of the 1930s, Americans were watching color films with full sound, including  Gone with the Wind  and  The Wizard of Oz .

Television existed before World War II but really began to take off in the 1950s. In 1947, there were 178,000 television sets made in the United States; five years later, there were 15 million. Radio, cinema, and live theater all saw a decline in the face of this new medium that allowed viewers to be entertained with sound and moving pictures without having to leave their homes.

For the last stage in this fast history of media technology, how’s this for a prediction? In 1969, management consultant Peter Drucker predicted that the next major technological innovation after television would be an “electronic appliance” that would be “capable of being plugged in wherever there is electricity and giving immediate access to all the information needed for schoolwork from first grade through college.” He said it would be the equivalent of Edison’s light bulb in its ability to revolutionize how we live. He had, in effect, predicted the computer. He was prescient about the effect that computers and the Internet would have on education, social relationships, and the culture at large. The inventions of random access memory (RAM) chips and microprocessors in the 1970s were important steps along the way to the Internet age. As Briggs and Burke (2005) note, these advances meant that “hundreds of thousands of components could be carried on a microprocessor.” The reduction of many different kinds of content to digitally stored information meant that “print, film, recording, radio and television and all forms of telecommunications [were] now being thought of increasingly as part of one complex.”

Mass Communication – A Definition

Now that we understand the history of mass communication, let’s circle back to defining what mass communication and why it is important in society. We define communication as the process of generating meaning by sending and receiving verbal and nonverbal symbols and signs that are influenced by multiple contexts. Mass Communication does that on a grander scale as it imparts or exchanges information to a wide range of people. Even a brief history of media and mass communication can leave one breathless. The speed, reach, and power of the technology are humbling. Evolution can seem almost natural and inevitable, but it is important to stop and ask a basic question: Why? Why do media and mass communication play such an important role in our lives and culture ? According to the website  Chron.com  we see that the four functions of mass communications are: surveillance, correlation, cultural transmission, and entertainment:

• Media provide  entertainment  acting as a springboard for our imaginations, a source of fantasy, and an outlet for escapism.
• Media provide  information  and  education . Information can come in many forms and often blurs the line with entertainment.
• Media provide  public forums  for the discussion of important issues.
• Media provide watchdog services to  monitor government, business, and other institutions . Online journalists today try to uphold this role.

Thinking more deeply, we can recognize that certain media are better at certain roles. Media have characteristics that influence how we use them. While some forms of mass media are better suited to entertainment, others make more sense as a venue for spreading information. The 1960s media theorist Marshall McLuhan took these ideas one step further with the phrase  “the medium is the message.” McLuhan emphasized that each medium delivers information in a different way and that content is fundamentally shaped by that medium. For example, although television news has the advantage of offering video and live coverage, making a story come vividly alive, it is also a faster-paced medium. That means stories get reported in different ways than print. A story told on television will often be more visual, have less information, and be able to offer less history and context than the same story covered in a monthly magazine. This feature of media technology leads to interesting arguments. For example, some people claim that television presents “dumbed down” information. Others disagree. In an essay about television’s effects on contemporary fiction, writer David Foster Wallace  (1997) scoffed at the “reactionaries who regard TV as some malignancy visited on an innocent populace, sapping IQs and compromising SAT scores while we all sit there on ever fatter bottoms with little mesmerized spirals revolving in our eyes…Treating television as evil is just as reductive and silly as treating it like a toaster with pictures.”

We do not have to cast value judgments but can affirm: People who get the majority of their news from a particular medium will have a particular view of the world shaped not just by the  content  of what they watch but also by its  medium . Or, as computer scientist Alan Kay (1994) put it, “Each medium has a special way of representing ideas that emphasize particular ways of thinking and de-emphasize others.” The Internet has made this discussion even richer because it seems to hold all other media within it—print, radio, film, television, and more. If indeed the medium is the message, the Internet provides us with an extremely interesting message to consider.

Key Terms & Concepts

• mass communication
• public forums

Briggs, A., & Burke, P. (2005). A Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet . Polity Press.

Kay, A. (1994, May). The Infobahn is Not the Answer. Wired .

Wallace, D. F. (1997). A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again . Little Brown.

Licensing and Attribution:  Content in this section is a combination of:

9.1: Mass Communication – A Definition and 9.2: Quick Look – Mass Communication and Media in Competent Communication (2nd edition)  by Lisa Coleman, Thomas King, & William Turner. It is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA  license.

1.4: How Did We Get Here? The Evolution of Media in Mass Communication, Media, and Culture by Anonymous on LibreTexts. It is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA  license.

Sociological Communication Copyright © 2023 by Veronica Van Ry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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The Personal Computer Revolution: A Timeline of Innovation and Impact

• by history tools
• March 29, 2024

From room-sized mainframes to pocket-sized smartphones, the rapid advancement of computing technology over the past century has transformed nearly every aspect of modern life. At the heart of this revolution is the concept of the "personal computer" – a device designed to put the power of computing into the hands of individuals.

Today, we take for granted the ability to access a world of information and services from anywhere with a few taps on a screen. But the story of how we got here is a complex tale spanning generations of inventors, engineers, entrepreneurs, and visionaries. In this post, we‘ll trace the remarkable evolution of personal computing from its earliest origins to the present day, and consider where the technology might take us in the decades to come.

The Mechanical Era: Early Analog Computers

Long before the advent of electronic computers, mathematicians and inventors were fascinated by the idea of machines that could automate complex calculations. One of the earliest examples was the "stepped reckoner", a mechanical calculator designed by the German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in 1694. Leibniz‘s device could add, subtract, multiply, and divide – a groundbreaking achievement for the time.

In the early 1800s, the English mathematician Charles Babbage conceived of even more sophisticated computing engines. His Difference Engine, begun in 1823, was designed to tabulate polynomial functions for navigational charts. Though never fully completed, the Difference Engine demonstrated the potential for mechanical computation and inspired Babbage‘s even more ambitious project: the Analytical Engine.

Babbage began designing the Analytical Engine in 1837 and continued refining the concept for the rest of his life. Featuring components like a "store" for memory and a "mill" for executing operations, it outlined several key concepts that would later be essential to electronic computing. Perhaps most significantly, the Analytical Engine could be programmed using punch cards – an idea Babbage borrowed from the Jacquard loom. While the complete Analytical Engine was never built, Babbage‘s designs foreshadowed developments in computing that would not fully emerge for over a century.

Other key inventions in the mechanical computing era included the Arithmometer, the first commercially produced mechanical calculator, invented by Thomas de Colmar in 1820. The Arithmometer and similar devices like the Comptometer were used up through World War I. These early analog computers, while cumbersome and limited by modern standards, hinted at the immense potential of automated calculation.

The Electronic Era: Turing, ENIAC and the Dawn of Digital Computing

The onset of World War II vastly accelerated the development of computing technology. Governments on all sides poured tremendous resources into developing electronic calculation machines to gain a military edge. Perhaps the most significant theoretical foundations were laid by the British mathematician Alan Turing, who in 1936 described a hypothetical device that could perform any conceivable mathematical computation – the "universal Turing machine". Turing and others went on to build physical computing devices to aid the Allied war effort, including machines used to crack encrypted Nazi communications.

In the United States, work began on the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) in 1943 at the University of Pennsylvania. Completed in 1945, ENIAC was the first general-purpose, programmable, electronic computer. It occupied 1,800 square feet, weighed 30 tons, and used about 18,000 vacuum tubes. Though originally built to calculate artillery firing tables for the U.S. Army, ENIAC was used in the final months of the war to perform crucial calculations for the Manhattan Project.

ENIAC and other early electronic computers represented a major leap over their mechanical predecessors in terms of speed and programmability. But these room-sized behemoths were still a far cry from what we would recognize as a "personal computer" today. They were enormously expensive, unreliable, and difficult to program, requiring specialized expertise to operate. Computers remained largely confined to government and academic labs for the first decade after the war.

The Transistor and the Birth of Commercial Computing

The next major milestone came in 1947 with the invention of the transistor by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley at Bell Labs. Transistors could perform the same switching and amplification functions as vacuum tubes but were smaller, cheaper, more reliable, and more energy efficient. As transistors improved and were produced at scale over the 1950s, they became the essential building blocks of a new generation of more powerful, more affordable computers.

Companies like IBM, Burroughs, and Remington Rand began selling transistor-based computers to large corporations and government agencies. The IBM 650, launched in 1953, became the first mass-produced computer, with nearly 2,000 units sold. These "mainframe" computers were still large, expensive devices used primarily for data processing and scientific calculations. But as costs came down and performance improved, the market for commercial computing steadily expanded.

One important development in this era was the emergence of high-level programming languages like FORTRAN (1957) and COBOL (1959). These languages abstracted away much of the complexity of writing software in machine code, making programming more accessible to a wider range of users. The late 1950s also saw the development of crucial infrastructural technologies like magnetic core memory and the modem.

The Microchip and the Minicomputer Revolution

By the 1960s, transistors had been miniaturized and integrated into single chips containing multiple components, including the Intel 4004, the first commercial microprocessor, released in 1971. These "microchips" enabled the production of much smaller, cheaper, and more reliable computers than was possible with individual transistors. A new class of "minicomputers" emerged, led by companies like Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), Wang Laboratories, and Data General.

Minicomputers were still much larger and more expensive than what we would call a "personal computer" today, but they represented a major step towards democratizing access to computing power. Minicomputers were widely used in scientific research, engineering, and education throughout the 1960s and 70s. They also found success with smaller businesses that couldn‘t afford mainframes, sparking the development of the first packaged software applications for tasks like accounting and inventory management.

This era also saw the birth of many fundamental PC technologies. Douglas Engelbart gave his famous "Mother of All Demos" in 1968, showcasing a system featuring the first computer mouse, graphical user interface, hypertext, and videoconferencing. Researchers at Xerox‘s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) further refined these concepts into the Alto, the first personal computer with a graphical user interface and mouse, though it was never commercially produced. The Alto directly inspired the Apple Lisa and Macintosh.

The Rise of the Microcomputer

The true personal computer revolution began in the mid-1970s with the emergence of "microcomputers". Advances in microchip technology had finally made it possible to build complete computers at a price point accessible to consumers. The first commercially available personal computer was the Altair 8800, released in 1975. The Altair was a rudimentary device sold as a $439 kit that users had to assemble themselves, but it quickly gained a cult following among technology enthusiasts.

Other iconic machines of this era included the Apple II (1977), which added high-resolution color graphics, sound, and gaming capabilities, and the Commodore PET (1977), one of the first to come fully assembled with an integrated monitor and tape drive. These early PCs were popular with hobbyists but remained a niche product overall. That began to change in the 1980s as prices dropped and more consumer-friendly models hit the market.

In 1981, IBM entered the personal computer market with the IBM PC, featuring Microsoft‘s MS-DOS operating system and an Intel 8088 processor. The IBM PC‘s open architecture was soon reverse-engineered, leading to a proliferation of cheap "PC clones" and cementing the "Wintel" (Windows + Intel) platform as the industry standard. By the end of the decade, PC sales were growing at over 30% annually, with an estimated 65 million units in use.

The GUI Wars and the Maturing of the PC Industry

Early PCs were difficult to use, requiring users to memorize arcane text commands. That began to change in the 1980s with the introduction of graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Apple‘s Lisa (1983) and Macintosh (1984) were the first personal computers to come with a fully integrated GUI and mouse, making computing dramatically more accessible to mainstream users. Microsoft responded with its own GUI, Windows, which was clunkier than the Mac interface but compatible with the huge existing base of IBM PCs and clones.

The late 80s and 90s saw explosive growth in the PC industry as GUIs brought computing to the masses. An ecosystem of software and peripheral makers sprung up to support the expanding userbase. Key productivity applications like Microsoft Word and Excel cemented the PC as an essential business tool, while CD-ROM drives enabled multimedia and gaming use cases. PC ownership in the US grew from 15% of households in 1990 to over 50% by the end of the decade.

This period also saw the emergence of laptops as a major PC category, led by Toshiba, Compaq, and Apple. While bulky and expensive by today‘s standards, 90s-era laptops untethered computing from the desktop and hinted at a more mobile future. The maturing PC market also underwent some consolidation, with brands like Compaq and Gateway swallowed up by HP and Acer, respectively. But the "Wintel" duopoly continued to dominate the industry.

The Internet Era

The transformative power of the PC was taken to a whole new level by the emergence of the Internet. Though the underlying technologies of the Internet had been developed in previous decades, it was the launch of the World Wide Web in 1991 and the Mosaic web browser in 1993 that made the Internet accessible to mainstream users. Netscape‘s Navigator browser (1994) further popularized the web and kicked off the "dot-com boom".

Over the course of the 1990s, the Internet radically reshaped personal computing. Web browsers like Netscape and Microsoft‘s Internet Explorer became the primary way many people interacted with their computers. Email and instant messaging transformed personal communication and collaboration. Search engines like Yahoo! and Google put the world‘s information at users‘ fingertips. E-commerce pioneers like Amazon and eBay expanded the PC‘s role as a tool for shopping and trade.

The number of Internet users worldwide grew from just 2.6 million in 1990 to over 412 million by 2000 – a nearly 16,000% increase. The Internet economy was estimated to be generating over $500 billion per year by the end of the 90s. The "network effect" of the Internet dramatically increased the utility and market penetration of PCs, which had become the primary gateways to this new digital world.

The Mobile Revolution

As the PC market matured in the 2000s, the locus of innovation shifted to mobile devices. Though earlier personal digital assistants (PDAs) had hinted at the potential of mobile computing, it was the launch of the iPhone in 2007 that truly ignited the smartphone revolution. With its multi-touch interface, full Internet browser, and developer-friendly App Store model, the iPhone turned the mobile phone into a general-purpose computing device.

The astonishing success of the iPhone (over 2 billion sold to date) spawned a vibrant ecosystem of mobile apps and services. Social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram were born mobile-first. On-demand services like Uber and DoorDash used smartphones to coordinate logistics at massive scale. Mobile gaming exploded, with titles like Angry Birds racking up billions of downloads.

The smartphone soon became the primary computing device for many people, particularly in developing markets where PCs had limited penetration. Between 2007-2021, the number of global smartphone users grew from 122 million to over 6.3 billion – 80% of the world‘s population. The center of gravity in personal computing had decisively shifted from the desktop to the pocket.

The Cloud Era and the Future of Personal Computing

In the 2010s, the rise of smartphones and ubiquitous broadband Internet ushered in the era of cloud computing. With cloud-based services like Dropbox, Google Docs, and Netflix, users could access their files and applications from any Internet-connected device. Cloud computing abstracted away the underlying hardware, making the specifics of local devices less important than their ability to connect to remote servers.

For businesses, cloud computing enabled a shift from large upfront investments in IT infrastructure to flexible, pay-as-you-go models. Amazon Web Services, launched in 2006, pioneered the "public cloud" category and was soon joined by Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and others. By 2020, the global public cloud services market had grown to over $250 billion. This shift has corresponded with a decline in traditional PC sales, as more computing workloads move off of local devices.

So what does the future hold for personal computing? The smartphone looks set to remain the dominant device category for the foreseeable future, with ongoing innovations in areas like augmented reality, mobile wallets, and wearables. At the same time, the PC category is experiencing something of a renaissance, with new form factors like 2-in-1 tablets, gaming PCs, and ARM-powered laptops driving growth.

In the longer term, technologies like brain-computer interfaces and advanced AI assistants may redefine our relationship with computers and blur the lines between the physical and digital worlds even further. As computing becomes ever more ubiquitous and ambient, the very notion of a "personal computer" may evolve in ways we can only begin to imagine. But one thing‘s for sure: the story of personal computing is still unfolding, and the machines that have already revolutionized our world over the past half-century will continue to shape the future in profound and exciting new ways.

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Mass Communication

Evolution of mass communication.

Societies have long had a desire to find effective ways to report environmental dangers and opportunities; circulate opinions, facts, and ideas; pass along knowledge, heritage, and lore; communicate expectations to new members; entertain in an expansive manner; and broaden commerce and trade (Schramm). The primary challenge has been to find ways to communicate messages to as many people as possible. Our need-to-know prompted innovative ways to get messages to the masses.

Before writing, humans relied on oral traditions to pass on information. “It was only in the 1920s-according to the Oxford English Dictionary-that people began to speak of ‘the media’ and a generation later, in the 1950s, of a ‘communication revolution’, but a concern with the means of communication is very much older than that” (Briggs & Burke 1). Oral and written communication played a major role in ancient cultures. These oral cultures used stories to document the past and impart cultural standards, traditions, and knowledge. With the development of alphabets around the world over 5000 years ago, written language with ideogrammatic (picture-based) alphabets like hieroglyphics started to change how cultures communicated.

Mass Communication Study Then

In 1949, Carl I. Hovland, Arthur A. Lumsdaine, and Fred D. Sheffield wrote the book Experiments on Mass Communication. They looked at two kinds of films the Army used to train soldiers. First, they examined orientation and training films such as the “Why We Fight” that were intended to teach facts to the soldiers, as well as generate a positive response from them for going to war. The studies determined that significant learning did take place by the soldiers from the films, but primarily with factual items. The Army was disappointed with the results that showed that the orientation films did not do an effective job in generating the kind of positive responses they desired from the soldiers. Imagine, people were not excited about going to war.

With the transition to the industrial age in the 18th century, large populations headed to urban areas, creating mass audiences of all economic classes seeking information and entertainment. Printing technology was at the heart of modernization WHICH led to magazines, newspapers, the telegraph, and the telephone. At the turn of the century (1900), pioneers like Thomas Edison, Theodore Puskas, and Nikola Tesla literally electrified the world and mass communication. With the addition of motion pictures and radio in the early 1900s, and television in the 40s and 50s, the world increasingly embraced the foundations of today’s mass communication. In the 1970s cable started challenging over-the-air broadcasting and traditional program distribution making the United States a wired nation. In 2014, there was an estimated 116.3 million homes in America that own a TV (Nielson, 2014 Advance National TV Household Universe Estimate). While traditionally these televisions would display only the programs that are chosen to be broadcast by cable providers, more and more households have chosen to become more conscious media consumers and actively choose what they watch through alternative viewing options like streaming video.

Today, smart T.V.’s and streaming devices have taken over the market and they are expected to be in 43% of households by 2016. These new forms of broadcasting have created a digital revolution. Thanks to Netflix and other streaming services we are no longer subjected to advertisements during our shows. Similarly, streaming services like Hulu provide the most recent episodes as they appear on cable that viewers can watch any time. These services provide instant access to entire seasons of shows (which can result in binge watching).

The Information Age eventually began to replace the ideals of the industrial age. In 1983 Time Magazine named the PC the first “Machine of the Year.” Just over a decade later, PCs outsold televisions. Then, in 2006, Time Magazine named “you” as the person of the year for your use of technology to broaden communication. “You” took advantage of changes in global media. Chances are that you, your friends, and family spend hours engaged in data-mediated communication such as emailing, texting, or participating in various form of social media. Romero points out that, “The Net has transformed the way we work, the way we get in contact with others, our access to information, our levels of privacy and indeed notions as basic and deeply rooted in our culture as those of time and space” (88). Social media has also had a large impact in social movements across the globe in recent years by providing the average person with the tools to reach wide audiences around the world for the first time history.

If you’re reading this for a college class, you may belong to the millennial generation. Free wifi, apps, alternative news sources, Facebook, and Twitter have become a way of life. Can you imagine a world without communication technology? How would you find out the name of that song stuck in your head? If you wanted to spontaneously meet up with a friend for lunch, how would you let them know? Mass communication has become such an integral part of our daily lives, most people probably could not function through the day without it. What started as email quickly progressed to chat rooms and basic blogs, such as LiveJournal. From there, we saw the rise and fall of the first widely used social media platform, Myspace. Though now just a shadow of the social media powerhouse it once was, Myspace paved the way for social media to enter the mainstream in forms of websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Snapchat, and Instagram. Facebook has evolved into a global social media site. It’s available in 37 languages and has over 500 million users. Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook in 2005 while studying at Harvard University, and it has universally changed the way we communicate, interact, and share our lives with friends, family, and acquaintances. Many people argue about the good and bad qualities of having a Facebook profile, it can be looked at as your “digital footprint” in social media. Profiles log status updates, timelines photos and videos, and archives messages between members. Here’s a short YouTube video from rapper/poet Prince Ea about Facebook and the effects of social media on society.

Another example of mainstream social media is Twitter. Twitter allows for quick 140 character or less status updates (called tweets) for registered users. Tweets can be sent from any device with access to internet in a fast simple way and connects with a number of people, whether they be family, friends or followers. Twitter’s microblogging format allows for people to share their daily thoughts and experiences on a broad and sometimes public stage. The simplicity of Twitter allows it to be used as a tool for entertainment and blogging, but also as a way of organizing social movements and sharing breaking news.

Snapchat is a newer social media platform used by more and more people every day. The function of Snapchat allows the user to send a photo (with the option of text) that expires after a few seconds. It can be looked at like a digital self-destructing note you would see in an old spy movie. Unlike its competitors, Snapchat is used in a less professional manner, emphasizing humor and spontaneity over information efficiency. Contrary to Facebook, there is no pressure to pose, or display your life. Rather, it is more spontaneous. It’s like the stranger you wink at in the street or a hilarious conversation with a best friend.

Mass Communication Study Now

With new forms of communication emerging rapidly, it is important to note the corresponding changes to formal language and slang terms. UrbanDictionary.com is a famous site that can introduce any newbie to the slang world by presenting them various definitions for a term they don’t recognize, describe its background, and provide examples for how it’s used in context. For example, one of the most popular definitions claims that the word ‘ hella ’ is said to originate from the streets of San Francisco in the Hunters Point neighborhood. “It is commonly used in place of ‘really’ or ‘very’ when describing something.”

In this age of information overload, multiple news sources, high-speed connections, and social networking, life seems unimaginable without mass communication. Can you relate to your parents’ stories about writing letters to friends, family, or their significant others? Today, when trying to connect with someone we have a variety ways of contacting them; we can call, text, email, Facebook message, tweet, and/or Snapchat; the options are almost endless and ever-changing. Society today is in the midst of a technological revolution. Only a few years ago families were arguing over landline internet cable use and the constant disruptions from incoming phone calls. Now, we have the ability to browse the web anytime on smart phones. Since the printing press, mass communication has literally changed the ways we think and interact as humans. We take so much for granted as “new technologies are assimilated so rapidly in U.S. culture that historic perspectives are often lost in the process” (Fidler 1). With all of this talk and research about mass communication, what functions does it serve for us?

• Survey of Communication Study. Authored by : Scott T Paynton and Linda K Hahn. Provided by : Humboldt State University. Located at : https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Survey_of_Communication_Study . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Image of ancient text. Authored by : Steven Kay. Located at : https://flic.kr/p/8UqWtt . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Image of YouTube graphic. Authored by : Sean MacEntee. Located at : https://flic.kr/p/99Y7br . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Can We Auto-Correct Humanity?. Authored by : Prince Ea. Located at : https://youtu.be/dRl8EIhrQjQ . License : All Rights Reserved . License Terms : Standard YouTube License

Communication Revolution

ARPANET and the Development of the Internet, 50 Years Later

Zoë Jackson | May 14, 2019

W here did the internet come from? If you guessed ARPANET, or the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, you would be in agreement with most popular and journalistic accounts of how the internet was created. And, to an extent, you would be right. A packet-switching network that connected computers across the United States in the late 20th century, ARPANET, as Camille Paloque-Bergès and Valérie Schafer wrote in the introduction to a special issue of Internet Histories published earlier this year, is commonly “celebrated as the ancestor of the Internet.” (For the uninitiated, packet-switching involves breaking up data into smaller parts that are sent over a network and then put back together at the other end.)

The Interface Message Processor connected UCLA to ARPANET, and relayed the first message between UCLA and Stanford. FastLizard4/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0

It was over ARPANET, in October 1969, that programmers in labs at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Stanford University exchanged the first computer-to-computer message: “LO” (an unintentionally truncated form of L-O-G-I-N). But 50 years later, as the world gears up to commemorate the anniversary of that first message, historians of technology say there’s more to the story of the creation of the internet than the development of ARPANET. Instead, they point to networks built either elsewhere in the United States or around the world that also played key roles in the history of computer networking. ARPANET is still important, but is no longer the starting reference point in the history of the internet as it once used to be, they say.

Scholars are also veering away from “great man” narratives focusing on the biographies of inventors, often white men, that accompany the retelling of internet history. Instead, they’re calling for an expanded effort to include women and people of color as well as those who used the early network or who helped keep it functioning. This attention to diversity, scholars say, will bring forth more nuanced perspectives on the history of the internet and illuminate aspects of its importance that go beyond the technical.

The internet is related to but distinct from the World Wide Web. A simple, technical way to define the internet is as a global network connecting computers, phones, printers, and other devices—a “network of networks” as Andrew Russell (SUNY Polytechnic Inst.) described in an email. The World Wide Web, on the other hand, is a collection of web pages that are accessed via the internet. ARPANET was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency at the Department of Defense. The network, launched in the late 1960s, was created “not for direct military use, but to connect their civilian researchers who were at different universities,” explains Janet Abbate, professor of science, technology, and society at Virginia Tech and author of Inventing the Internet (1999), one of the first histories of ARPANET and the internet.

ARPANET is no longer the starting reference point in the history of the internet.

Many popular accounts of the development of the internet follow a “linear progression,” with ARPANET as the point of origin, Russell explains. This “narrow history,” he says, traces events from the creation of ARPANET in the 1960s to the delineation of the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (sets of rules for how data can be shared over the internet) to the development of the web to “commercialization in the 90s.”

But scholarly histories have moved on. Recent work, for example, has focused on the development of networks other than ARPANET. In Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile (2011), Eden Medina (Indiana Univ.) writes about the development of Project Cybersyn in Chile. The purpose of the project, Medina explained to Perspectives , was to help Salvador Allende’s socialist government “nationalize the most important industries of the economy.” According to Medina, the government wanted to use a computer system to gather and visualize data, and design “new communication channels” that would enable it “to make management decisions on a national scale.” The project began in 1971 and ran until 1973, concurrent with the development of ARPANET but completely independent of it.

Medina argues that examining Project Cybersyn reveals the history of computer networking as a “global history.” “When people think about computer networks and the internet, very quickly they think of it as a US technology,” she says, “but there were these other networking efforts that were taking place at around the same time.” Scholars are also researching the development of networks in other countries, such as France and the USSR. Benjamin Peters, for example, in How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet (2016), documents the Soviet Union’s unsuccessful attempts to develop a nationwide computer network around the same time ARPANET was being built. Russell and Valérie Schafer have also highlighted the significance of the Cyclades project, which sought to influence the development of computer communication in France. Although this French computer network was never directly connected to ARPANET, engineers on both projects communicated with each other frequently. The Cyclades project ended in 1979 due to financial and political concerns but had lasting effects on the type of network on which the internet is based.

Scholars have also started looking at other neglected aspects of internet history. Traditional histories of technology focus on innovators, the people who pioneer new technological systems. But Russell, who’s also the chair of the Special Interest Group for Computers, Information, and Society (SIGCIS) in the Society for the History of Technology, thinks the idea that there should be a “multiplicity of perspectives and origin stories and sources and interpretations” when it comes to the history of technology is now “mainstream” among scholars. He observes that in the SIGCIS community, “it’s harder and harder to tell the old-fashioned, biography-driven, great man stories.” Newer scholars are more interested in researching “the connections between computing and society, what role users had in repurposing computers, phenomena like maintenance and infrastructure in different settings, and repair in different settings,” he adds.

To tell some of these stories, Russell co-founded, with Lee Vinsel (Virginia Tech), the Maintainers movement, which highlights the contributions and significance of “maintainers”—those who perform the work of maintenance, repair, and upkeep of the infrastructure that keeps society running. “Making a large technological system like the ARPANET work,” for example, explains Russell, “really depended on ARPA’s and the contractors’ ability to keep things running.” The Maintainers movement has spawned conversations, articles, workshops, conferences, and a community of scholars that, according to its blog , is interested in asking why we “neglect both maintenance and Maintainers, the people who keep our societies going.” “We talk about the internet as this transformational innovation, but the fact is that without all of this maintenance work . . . the infrastructure would have never existed to get the internet to the point where it can be a reliable disruptive force,” says Russell.

“It’s harder and harder to tell the old-fashioned, biography-driven, great man stories.”

Abbate notes that there are other aspects of the history of ARPANET and the internet that have also been “conspicuously left out.” Lynn Conway, a pioneer in computer-chip design, argues that the scientific contributions of women and people of color have been erased from the historical record because they don’t often fit the profile of people expected to be the innovators. As Paloque-Bergès and Schafer write, “ARPANET still remains largely absent” from the main scholarly “contributions to gender-conscious histories of computing and networking.” When Abbate was writing Inventing the Internet , for example, she kept asking herself, “Where are the women? What’s going on here?” She eventually wrote a second book, Recoding Gender: Women’s Changing Participation in Computing (2012), focusing on women’s involvement in computer science and programming in the second half of the 20th century.

Despite this repositioning of ARPANET and the people who developed it, scholars still emphasize its significance. Abbate describes ARPANET as the “backbone, the original place for the American Internet.” She points to the defense department’s choice to solve the problem of how to connect their researchers at different universities across the United States with “a messy, heterogeneous system, instead of something that would be simple and standardized,” as influential in shaping future funding models for research. ARPANET was influential in other ways, too. Sandra Braman (Texas A&M Univ.), in a 2010 article for Information, Communication & Society , describes how in the early stages of development, computer scientists working on ARPANET, many of them graduate students, “realized that they needed to document their discussions, the information being shared, and the decisions about network design that were being made.” These requests for comments (RFCs), as they came to be known, continue to be used today in the technology and internet communities. Abbate characterizes the RFCs as “a democratizing communication mode,” promoting the idea that “everyone can contribute” and that the community of researchers is “not hierarchal.”

Fifty years on, ARPANET’s significance ultimately depends on perspective. When looked at from the standpoint of developing “hardware and the infrastructure,” says Abbate, “ARPANET seems very big in that history.” But “if you look at things like human activity [and] use,” she continues, “ARPANET is a smaller piece in a bigger history of human communication and technologically mediated communities.”

Zoë Jackson is editorial assistant at the AHA.

Tags: News Cultural History History of STEM

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Zoë Jackson | Dec 1, 2017

Seth Denbo | May 7, 2019

Seth Denbo | May 1, 2017

The history of computing is both evolution and revolution

Head, Department of Computing & Information Systems, The University of Melbourne

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Justin Zobel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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This month marks the 60th anniversary of the first computer in an Australian university. The University of Melbourne took possession of the machine from CSIRO and on June 14, 1956, the recommissioned CSIRAC was formally switched on. Six decades on, our series Computing turns 60 looks at how things have changed.

It is a truism that computing continues to change our world. It shapes how objects are designed, what information we receive, how and where we work, and who we meet and do business with. And computing changes our understanding of the world around us and the universe beyond.

For example, while computers were initially used in weather forecasting as no more than an efficient way to assemble observations and do calculations, today our understanding of weather is almost entirely mediated by computational models.

Another example is biology. Where once research was done entirely in the lab (or in the wild) and then captured in a model, it often now begins in a predictive model, which then determines what might be explored in the real world.

The transformation that is due to computation is often described as digital disruption . But an aspect of this transformation that can easily be overlooked is that computing has been disrupting itself.

Evolution and revolution

Each wave of new computational technology has tended to lead to new kinds of systems, new ways of creating tools, new forms of data, and so on, which have often overturned their predecessors. What has seemed to be evolution is, in some ways, a series of revolutions.

But the development of computing technologies is more than a chain of innovation – a process that’s been a hallmark of the physical technologies that shape our world.

For example, there is a chain of inspiration from waterwheel, to steam engine, to internal combustion engine. Underlying this is a process of enablement. The industry of steam engine construction yielded the skills, materials and tools used in construction of the first internal combustion engines.

In computing, something richer is happening where new technologies emerge, not only by replacing predecessors, but also by enveloping them. Computing is creating platforms on which it reinvents itself, reaching up to the next platform.

Getting connected

Arguably, the most dramatic of these innovations is the web. During the 1970s and 1980s, there were independent advances in the availability of cheap, fast computing, of affordable disk storage and of networking.

Compute and storage were taken up in personal computers, which at that stage were standalone, used almost entirely for gaming and word processing. At the same time, networking technologies became pervasive in university computer science departments, where they enabled, for the first time, the collaborative development of software.

This was the emergence of a culture of open-source development, in which widely spread communities not only used common operating systems, programming languages and tools, but collaboratively contributed to them.

As networks spread, tools developed in one place could be rapidly promoted, shared and deployed elsewhere. This dramatically changed the notion of software ownership, of how software was designed and created, and of who controlled the environments we use.

The networks themselves became more uniform and interlinked, creating the global internet, a digital traffic infrastructure. Increases in computing power meant there was spare capacity for providing services remotely.

The falling cost of disk meant that system administrators could set aside storage to host repositories that could be accessed globally. The internet was thus used not just for email and chat forums (known then as news groups) but, increasingly, as an exchange mechanism for data and code.

This was in strong contrast to the systems used in business at that time, which were customised, isolated, and rigid.

With hindsight, the confluence of networking, compute and storage at the start of the 1990s, coupled with the open-source culture of sharing, seems almost miraculous. An environment ready for something remarkable, but without even a hint of what that thing might be.

The ‘superhighway’

It was to enhance this environment that then US Vice President Al Gore proposed in 1992 the “ information superhighway ”, before any major commercial or social uses of the internet had appeared.

Meanwhile, in 1990, researchers at CERN, including Tim Berners-Lee , created a system for storing documents and publishing them to the internet, which they called the world wide web .

As knowledge of this system spread on the internet (transmitted by the new model of open-source software systems), people began using it via increasingly sophisticated browsers. They also began to write documents specifically for online publication – that is, web pages.

As web pages became interactive and resources moved online, the web became a platform that has transformed society. But it also transformed computing.

With the emergence of the web came the decline of the importance of the standalone computer, dependent on local storage.

We all connect

The value of these systems is due to another confluence: the arrival on the web of vast numbers of users. For example, without behaviours to learn from, search engines would not work well, so human actions have become part of the system.

There are (contentious) narratives of ever-improving technology, but also an entirely unarguable narrative of computing itself being transformed by becoming so deeply embedded in our daily lives.

This is, in many ways, the essence of big data. Computing is being fed by human data streams: traffic data, airline trips, banking transactions, social media and so on.

The challenges of the discipline have been dramatically changed by this data, and also by the fact that the products of the data (such as traffic control and targeted marketing) have immediate impacts on people.

Software that runs robustly on a single computer is very different from that with a high degree of rapid interaction with the human world, giving rise to needs for new kinds of technologies and experts, in ways not evenly remotely anticipated by the researchers who created the technologies that led to this transformation.

Decisions that were once made by hand-coded algorithms are now made entirely by learning from data. Whole fields of study may become obsolete.

The discipline does indeed disrupt itself. And as the next wave of technology arrives (immersive environments? digital implants? aware homes?), it will happen again.

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The Usage of Technology in Mass Communication and Its Applications

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• First Online: 19 November 2022
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• Abdulsadek Hassan 12 ,
• Sumaya Asgher Ali 12 &
• Nader Mohammed Sediq Abdulkhaleq 12  

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems ((LNNS,volume 557))

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The study aims to identify the role of modern technology in influencing the media fields by applying to the press, radio and television sectors. Which strengthens the broadcast, which made it possible to transfer information from the most remote places, as it was relied on satellites to transmit information, and it became possible to transmit and receive information from within the event, due to the development of means of communication and the presence of the Internet, which was able to link the regions of the world together. Direct interaction options were also introduced by viewers and listeners, and the results revealed that the entry of newspapers into the era of electronic publishing made it imperative to find advanced, fast and unconventional means to store information that is received by the newspaper on an ongoing basis, and leaving this huge amount of information undocumented or stored represents a waste A real wealth of information for press publications and publishing houses that are now working in the most important global trade, which is the information trade.

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Hassan, A., Ali, S.A., Abdulkhaleq, N.M.S. (2023). The Usage of Technology in Mass Communication and Its Applications. In: Musleh Al-Sartawi, A.M.A., Razzaque, A., Kamal, M.M. (eds) From the Internet of Things to the Internet of Ideas: The Role of Artificial Intelligence. EAMMIS 2022. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 557. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17746-0_24

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1 A Communication Revolution: Radio and Telephony Technologies During the G.I. Generation

Simon Penso

1.1 Introduction

• The Great War – World War I, a global conflict waged between 1914 and 1918.
• 1934 Communications Act – A federal law signed by President Franklin Roosevelt establishing the Federal Communications Commission
• American Telephone and Telegraph Co. – A massive telecommunications company co-founded by Alexander Graham Bell in 1885 and still in business today.
• Morse code – A form of communication pioneered by Samuel Morse that played an integral role in Bell’s invention of the telephone.

Learning Objectives

• Describe who was involved in the creation of the telephone and the radio
• Briefly describe these inventions’ impact during the First World War
• Discuss how these inventions impacted mainstream American society

The great minds of the early 20th century were responsible for the creation of many technologies that are used globally today. Notable among these inventions are certain foundational communication technologies that have played pivotal roles in the history of the United States: the radio and the telephone. Quickly, users found applications for these creations. Ranging from being an apparatus for wartime communication to becoming a prominent method of widely dispersing information to the public, the dominance of radio had its origins during the time of the Greatest Generation. Similarly, Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone had begun to carve out an important place as a staple of intra-continent communication, being used largely for business purposes but also playing a role during the Great War – World War I, a global conflict waged between 1914 and 1918. Additionally, these means of communication became increasingly prominent in the United States throughout the Roaring ‘20s and the Great Depression, then continuing their dominance through World War II and beyond.

1.2 A Brief History

Key Takeaway(s)

1.2.1 Early Days of Telephony

The name of Alexander Graham Bell has become synonymous with the creation of one of the world’s most widely used pieces of technology. Bell, a Scottish engineer, received the first patent for specific “improvements in telegraphy” in early 1876 (Bell, 1974). His filing was not without question, however. Another notable inventor of the late 19th century named Elisha Gray was supposedly racing Bell to patent the technology that would lay the foundation for the modern telephone. Numerous reports claim that Bell poached specific components of Gray’s version of the telephone and passed them off as his own. In some people’s minds, these accusations taint Bell’s claim to the invention. However, Bell’s patent was scrutinized in court time and time again and his reputation as the ”father of telephony” remains intact to this day. Additionally, the technical specifications in Bell’s landmark patent eventually served to support the further innovations by Bell and his colleagues to improve upon the original invention. One such innovation, the telephone exchange (which would later be known as the switchboard) gave rise to the lucrative telephony industry. It should be noted that around this time, Bell co-founded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. AT&T remains a giant in the industry to this day. In its early days, AT&T faced accusations of monopolistic practices, eventually leading to its splintering into many of the telecommunications corporations that we recognize today.

“Alexander Graham Bell’s Telephone Patent Drawing and Oath” by The U.S. National Archive is in the Public Domain

1.2.2 The Birth of Radio

The invention of radio and subsequent radio based wireless telegraphy methods is a subject that remains hotly debated to this day. Two great scientific minds both laid claim to the creation of the radio: Nikola Tesla and Guglielmo Marconi. It should be noted that this first iteration of radio technology utilized electronic signals and morse code, with intelligible voice communication being developed later. While Marconi was the first to report the sending of wireless signals over great distances, including a transatlantic transmission, court arguments were less supportive of Marconi’s claim as the sole creator of radio based wireless telegraphy. Marconi received the general patent for the wireless transmission of signals in 1897, but seemingly always fought an uphill battle to truly establish himself as the father of radio. Marconi would bring suits against many parties, including the United States government, accusing infringement upon his patent (Harkins, 2008). This started the long and arduous court process that would culminate in a 1943 Supreme Court ruling that likened Marconi’s patent and subsequent suits to monopolistic behavior. As a result, Tesla was openly acknowledged as a founding father of wireless radio communications and Marconi’s patent was largely invalidated, albeit retroactively, as he and his Marconi company had already profited greatly from their strong claim as the original creators of radio. Despite Marconi’s apparent desire for the glory of being the sole inventor of radio, it cannot be argued that both he, Tesla, and others contributed greatly to the earliest iterations of radio based technologies. By the end of the time that the G.I. Generation had been improving upon radio, it had evolved into an ubiquitous technological staple with many applications.

“ Electrical engineer/inventor Guglielmo Marconi ” by LIFE Magazine is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

1.3 Applications During Wartime

Key Takeaways

 With both of these revolutionary inventions coming about in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was inevitable that they would play a role in the geopolitical space. This came to be during the First World War. Older methods of communication, namely the telegraph, were still employed during the war due to familiarity. However, these new communication methods were proven to be more efficient ways of transmitting information during wartime and came to be more widely adopted towards the end of the war and beyond.

1.3.1 Efficient Communication Overseas: Telephone Networks During World War I

For the first few years of the Great War, the United States remained uninvolved while fighting raged across Europe. Once President Woodrow Wilson and Congress did decide to declare war on Germany following the sinking of the Lusitania, the U.S. announced its presence with authority. One fascinating aspect of America’s involvement in the war was the partnership between the U.S. Army’s Signal Corps and the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, AT&T, known then colloquially as the Bell Company – after its founder (John & Laborie, 2019). This joint partnership was tasked with deploying a viable tactical communications network in France so that U.S. and allied troops could suitably communicate during battle. The timing of the U.S. entering the war was serendipitous for the Bell Company, who had recently been planning to pitch a major upgrade of domestic phone systems to the U.S. Congress. These ideas were then utilized to lay the groundwork for a rapid and robust network that would prove invaluable during the rest of the United States’ involvement in World War I. Many kilometers of telephone line were laid throughout France by Bell and the Signal Corps, thus significantly improving the consistency and speed of communication for the United States’ soldiers on the warfront.

Due to the haste with which this network was put together, security of the phone lines was not always paramount. Wires were left in the open and occasionally cut through by enemy soldiers, thus crippling the communication abilities between battlefield and operations centers. When this happened, soldiers had to revert to using telegraphs to share information.  Despite the weaknesses of this primitive network, the collaboration between Bell and the U.S. Army proved to be a great success and helped the U.S. ultimately secure victory during the Great War (John & Laborie, 2019). These networks were left in place after the war ended and bolstered France’s domestic phone networks, while also serving as a blueprint for an enhancement of the phone networks in the U.S..

1.3.2 Clunky and Primitive: Radio Usage During World War I

We often take for granted the accessibility of modern radio technology, particularly as depicted in popular media. Beyond the simple walkie-talkie, we see sleek earpieces and lossless communication, typically working without a hitch. Unfortunately, this could hardly be further from the true scenario endured by the soldiers in World War I. Radio sets employed by troops in the early 1910s were massive, often requiring several men to operate and perhaps even more men to move from place to place. These early radios were also technically complex, meaning that the average soldier might not be able to operate one. This led to certain levels of mistrust between allies, with troops not always believing that their assigned radio operators were truly acting benevolently. Accusations of betrayal may have been often levied at innocent radio operators, who may have turned into scapegoats when something went awry with battlefield communications (Siepmann, 1942). The use of radio as a means of tactical communication was severely limited during the time of the Great War, leading more people to turn to the use of the telephone or the older telegraph to communicate. By the last days of the war, radio technology had improved enough to be somewhat viable. American soldiers saw the greatest benefit from radio technology in the wars that were to come, however. By the time the G.I. Generation had come of age to fight in the Second World War, radio was a critical means of tactical communication. Attacks were coordinated, foot soldiers communicated with airborne fighters, and commanders gave orders over the radio when the technology had become ubiquitous in the 1940s.

“Radio Engineering Principles” by Henri Lauer & Harry Brown is in the Public Domain

1.4 Commercialization and Mass Adoption

 After wartime came to an end, these inventions began to carve out a place in the life of the everyday American. Telephones and especially radios became relatively ubiquitous. Radio became a primary medium for the dissemination of all types of information to the American public.

1.4.1 Telephony After the War

One major challenge with the telephony industry was the fact that it was largely privately operated. The aforementioned Bell Company owned the machinery as well as the right to research and innovate as they saw fit. Most other countries around the world had telecommunications networks that were owned and operated by the government. The U.S. government became involved with the operation of the domestic network in conjunction with Bell during the war, but ceded possession entirely back to the company once the fighting came to an end. This decision was met with a fair amount of pushback from legislators and citizens alike, who claimed that the government willingly re-enabled Bell’s status as a monopoly in the telecommunications industry (Janson & Yoo, 2013). The U.S. Government was not powerless, of course. The U.S. enacted legislation like the Communications Act of 1934. This act brought about the creation of the Federal Communications Commission to more closely monitor all sorts of communications industries (Hazlett, 2014). It did not, however, do much to appease those complaining about Bell Company’s monopolistic tendencies, since FCC regulations led to stiffer barriers for smaller companies attempting to carve out a local telecommunications presence.

1.4.2 Radio Hits Its Stride

The radio industry exploded in the years immediately following World War I. The Roaring 20s were largely influenced by the wide adoption of radio technology throughout the country. One great change that came with this adoption was the advent of broadcast radio. Radio had been a technology used for business and wartime communication, but in 1920 that all changed radically. The first public radio broadcast was made in 1920, and Americans were enthralled by the fact that voices and music were transmitted over radio waves from a broadcast station straight into their homes. This change in information sharing began a large-scale shift in how Americans expected to receive information relevant to them and their communities. No longer did breaking news travel by word-of-mouth; radio broadcasts kept people updated on a regular basis. All of a sudden, the radio spectrum became extremely congested. Savvy businessmen saw the newfound use of the radio as a goldmine. Radio stations popped up all over the country and radio became a primary medium for the dissemination of information of all sorts (Crawford‐Franklin & Robinson, 2013).

Additionally, the quality of radio broadcasts increased greatly around this time. Researchers for AT&T published works that led to a drastic reduction in static noises for radio broadcasts (Schwartz, 2009). Coinciding with these technical improvements was a great marketing push to get Americans to purchase home radio sets. As a result of this campaign, demand for radios skyrocketed, even as the Great Depression loomed. Americans were so desperate to listen to broadcasts in their homes that 75% of radio purchases were sold on credit as deferred payments (Scott & Walker, 2016).

  “Photograph of Farmer Listening to Radio Discussion, Clarkston, Utah” by The U.S. National Archives is in the Public Domain

You may wonder – why were so many Americans willing to take on a significant amount of debt to simply have a radio in their household? We must understand that these people craved information and entertainment of any fashion. Never before had there been a way to stay “in-the-know” or to observe a gripping drama or comedy show all from the comfort of the living room couch. No longer did people have to step out to grab a newspaper or to catch a show. No longer did someone have to have a gramophone in their house to hear a tune – they could simply tune their radio to the frequency of a station playing all of the latest and greatest hits. Radios became a primary means of information dissemination across the country, which meant that anyone without such a device was simply behind the times.

The appeal of the radio and its broadcasting capabilities were not only enchanting to the average American citizen. Soon, companies far and wide came to love radio broadcasts because they were a perfect medium for advertising and marketing campaigns. In the early 1930s, a radio was present in over 40% of American households, meaning that there was a substantial target audience for advertisers to infiltrate (Smith, 2014). Major broadcasting companies that were incorporated during this era were some of the biggest beneficiaries of having access to this captive audience. NBC, CBS, and ABC were all founded during this “golden age” of radio and were obviously incredibly successful, as they remain staples in American media today (Radio’s Impact on Culture, 2009).

Case Study – What Comes After the War for Radio?

It may seem hard to believe, but during World War I, the United States government prohibited civilian use of radio equipment. Instead, the government repurposed radio technologies to develop applications to coordinate with friendly aircraft and to keep troops apprised of enemy movements. A darker, less acknowledged motivation was the fear of civilians making use of open radio waves for spying and espionage, although these fears were largely driven by hysteria.

Although radio was solely a military apparatus during the war, it was occasionally used as an entertainment medium to improve troop morale:

Ensign Lawton was stationed in the Azores, as the commander of a submarine chaser. It was Christmas time, and he and his fellow troops had resigned to spending the holiday at sea. On the day, a storm was brewing, and the crew battled it for an extended period of time. Exhausted, Ensign Lawton and his compatriots were preparing to turn in for some respite before having to wake up to take up watch at night. Before he fell asleep, Lawton heard music playing somewhere on the ship! He left to investigate and came to discover that one of his men had convinced the flagship to give a phonograph concert over their radio frequency. Lawton and his men chugged along in the darkness, listening eagerly to every note that came from the phonograph through the wireless radio that they were all huddled around. After an hour, some men on the flagship were so invigorated by the songs that they decided to take up their instruments and play a small concert of their own over the radio system! The men danced along for a while before coming together to light up a large electric Christmas tree on the mast of one of the ships. And as if that was not enough of a spectacle, they were surprised to hear a voice crackling through the very same radio wishing them well on a splendid Christmas night. It was the voice of the Naval Fleet Commander for the Atlantic Ocean coming through that radio. Afterwards, Ensign Lawton and his men felt rejuvenated, thanks in no small part to the magic of radio.

This small story shows us the powerful potential of radio usage in the general public as a method of entertainment and a way to disseminate information, which would become major applications for the technology after wartime.

Chapter Summary

The invention of the telephone and the radio brought about significant social changes in the early 20th century, the prime days of the G.I. Generation. Originally starting as niche products, these technologies hit their stride when America entered into World War I and later became part of the regular fabric of American life. We see an interesting dynamic in the privatization of telephony technologies versus the government-sanctioned restriction of radio usage during wartime. These two distinct technologies played an important role in the ultimate victory of the United States during World War I and would only become more prominent in the wars to come, particularly World War II. These technologies eventually became immensely important to the general population. Telephony became widely adopted as a near-instantaneous method of communication and remains prevalent today. Radio became a massive industry for news and entertainment and its evolution changed the way that the American public absorbed information.

Review Questions

Who is widely accepted as the inventor of the telephone?

• Thomas Edison
• Alexander Graham Bell
• Albert Einstein
• Nikola Tesla

Where was the U.S. Signal Corps tasked with working with Bell Company to create a European wartime telephone network? 

• Great Britain

When was the first public radio broadcast in the United States?

What primary purpose did radio serve in the United States during World War I ?

• Civilian shows and broadcasts
• Business-to-business broadcasts
• No purpose, as radio technology was entirely too primitive to make any broadcasts of substance.
• Military communications – including tactical battlefield broadcasts and longer-range communications from officers to soldiers in the field.
• Military Communications

Food For Thought

How might certain parts of the war changed if telephony were not integrated into the effort?

After radio and telephony, what are some critical communication technologies throughout American history?

What sort of radio shows would be most marketable in today’s world? Or is the radio broadcast no longer a viable business model in the Information Age?

Bell, A. G. (1974). The Bell Telephone. In HathiTrust. Arno Press. https://babel.hathitrust. org/cgi/pt?id=wu.8906 7662395&view=1up&s eq=19

Crawford‐Franklin, C., & Robinson, L. (2013). “Even in an age of wonders”: radio as an information resource in 1920s America. Journal of Documentation, 69(3), 417–434. https://doi.org/10.1108/jd -08-2012-0108

Harkins, C. (2008). Tesla, Marconi, and the Great Radio Controversy: Awarding Patent Damages without Chilling a Defendant’s Incentive to Innovate [Review of Tesla, Marconi, and the Great Radio Controversy: Awarding Patent Damages without Chilling a Defendant’s Incentive to Innovate]. Missouri Law Review, 73, 745– 816

Hazlett, T. W. (2014). The Rationality of U.S. Regulation of the Broadcast Spectrum in the 1934 Communications Act. Review of Industrial Organization, 4 5(3), 203–220. https://doi.org/1 0.1007/s11151- 014-9429-9

Lawton. (1919, January 10). Longmeadow Had Christmas at Sea. The Springfield Republican, 4. https://earlyradiohistory.us/1919xmas.htm Janson, & Yoo, C. S. (2013). The Wires Go to War: The U.S. Experiment with Government Ownership of the Telephone System During World War I. Texas Law Review, 91(5), 983–

John, R. R., & Laborie, L. (2019). “Circuits of Victory”: how the First World War shaped the political economy of the telephone in the United States and France. History and Technology, 35(2), 115– 137. https://doi.org/10.1080/07 341512.2019.1652960 Radio’s Impact on Culture. (2009). Github.io. https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_understanding-media-and-culture-an-introduction-to-mass-communication/s10-03-radio-s-impact-on-culture.html

Schwartz, M. (2009). Improving the noise performance of communication systems: radio and telephony developments of the 1920s [History of Communications]. IEEE

Communications Magazine, 47(12), 16–20. https://doi.org/10.1109/MCOM.2009.5350362

Scott, P., & Walker, J. (2016). Bringing Radio into America’s Homes: Marketing New Technology in the Great Depression. Business History Review, 90(2), 251-276. doi:10.1017/S00076805160003 49

Siepmann, C. (1942). Radio in Wartime. Oxford University Press.

Smith, S. (2014, November 10). Radio: The Internet of the 1930s. Www.apmreports.org. https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2014/11/10/radio-the-internet-of-the-1930s

From G.I. to Z: A Generational Guide to Technology Copyright © by Simon Penso is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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58 Mass Communication Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best mass communication topic ideas & essay examples, 🔍 most interesting mass communication topics to write about, 🔎 simple & easy mass communication essay titles.

• Movies as a Medium of Mass Communication Over the decades of its development, the phenomenon of a movie has changed significantly, especially with the introduction of new genres and the discovery of new ways of conveying a particular idea visually.
• India Movie Industry as a Medium of Mass Communication India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is therefore charged with the development and regulation of the broadcasting, print, film and other media on behalf of the state.
• Telegraph and Its Impacts in Mass Communication The invention of electricity was very instrumental as it led to the discovery of electric telegraphy by William and Charles in the 19th century.
• Ethical Issues in Mass Communication and Advertising The following are some of the primary ethical issues that mass communication and advertising need to observe in modern society where media plays a crucial role in shaping public opinion.
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• Social Media as a Component of Mass Communication The reasons for such a claim are justified and refer to different opportunities that social media and the Internet give their users. During that time, social media helped me to stay aware of the current […]
• E-Media Fast: Mass Communication Theory The level of my media usage had risen to a point that I could not spend a day without the use of any of the media sources.
• Mass Communication Law and Ethics As the hotel employee did not clean up the water out of a fish tank that resulted in an accident, the hotel was to be responsible for that situation.
• The Study of Mass Communication and Popular Culture The contributions of the French sociologist emile Durkheim to the formation of sociology are rather sufficient, as the scientist has studied the ways in which societies could maintain their integrity and coherence in the present […]
• Global Mass Communication: Web Television The Web TV and IPTV are a powerful enabling force that enables the use of similar ideas in different corners of the world.
• Mass Communication Impact on Modern language Within the frames of another tradition, the impact of mass communication and mass culture on language and mass consciousness is analyzed in a different critical way.
• The History of Mass Communication: New Opportunities and Challenges for Society In the history of mass communication, it is possible to distinguish three main stages: ethic-legal paradoxes, techno-legal time-gap, and surveillance society, The new media is characterized by technological changes and changes in ideas and ideals […]
• Mass Media Communication: Personal Analysis Finally, when I do the same in the kitchen in the morning, I am occupied with preparing and eating my breakfast; therefore, television serves as a background and I cannot be focused on the information […]
• Global Music: Mass Communication The era of globalization had a dramatic impact not only on the economic development of the countries but also implied cultural exchange while distributing national music around the world.
• Mass Communication and Public Policy One example of the websites that help to exchange ideas but negatively is the In the real sense, there several public interests in conflict when the information about the funding of a politician is disclosed […]
• What is “Two-step Flow”? What Implications Does It Have for Our Understanding of Mass Communication? It should be known that there has been an implication of our understanding of mass communication as a result of this theory based on the fact that it has redefined our predictions on the influence […]
• The Implication of Chaffee and Metzger’s Article “The End of Mass Communication” With the development of computer-based communication technologies, the university should focus on this issue in determining the impact of technological changes on mass communication and the need to change the courses offered at the Lindenwood […]
• Americans: Global Awareness and Mass Communication
• How Technology and Convergence Has Changed the Face of Mass Communication
• Basic Ideas and Theories of Mass Communication
• Bringing Cultural Change Through Mass Communication
• Criteria for Professional Journalism and Mass Communication Programs
• The Uses and Impacts of Mass Communication
• Celebrity Phenomenon in an Era of Mass Communication
• Debating Mass Communication During the Rise and Fall of Broadcasting
• Demystifying Mass Communication Majors Into the Magazine Industry
• Digital History: Leading the Rise of Mass Communication
• How Mass Communication Approach Can Change Into Perspective
• Improving Physical Fitness Through Methods of Mass Communication
• Incorporating Mass Communication, Philosophy, and Sociology in the Education of an Athlete
• Internet Addiction Between Mass Communication and Nursing Students of Segi University
• Language and Mass Communication: Omnivore’s Dilemma
• Mass Communication and Its Effects on the Audience
• Linking Mass Communication and Academic Art
• The Relations Between Mass Communication and Culture
• Mass Communication Between People and Communities
• Relations Between Mass Communication and Social Policies
• The Parallels Between Mass Communication and Graphic Design
• Historical Analysis of Mass Communication During World War II
• The Link Between Mass Communication, Media, and Culture
• Mass Communication, Propaganda, and Persuasion Controlling America
• Relationship With Smartphones: Mass Communication
• Mass Communication Theory and Practice: An Overview
• Social Learning Theory: Are Children Being Corrupted by the Mass Communication Industry?
• Experience in Using Social Media for Mass Communication
• Sustainable Consumption and Mass Communication: A German Experiment
• The African Americans Throughout the History of Mass Communication
• The History and Evolution of Technology and Mass Communication
• Theories, Concepts, and Models in Mass Communication Theory Foundations and Future
• The Uses and Gratifications of Research of Mass Communication
• Understanding and Evaluating Mass Communication Theory
• The Role and Impact of Mass Communication on Sexuality in TV Programs
• Review of the Origin and Evolution of Mass Communication and Technology
• Mass Communication and Technological Advancement in “How Are Media Born”
• Synopsis of Dynamics of Mass Communication
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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