Chapter 1.
Intro to Information and Communication
Technology
Course Learning Outcomes
Create a brief history of the information Technology
Intended Learning Outcomes
1. Summarize key events in the history of
information technology;
2. Discover the milestone of information and
communication technology and its impact and
issues; and
3. Explain the role of technology in media and
how it affects communication
LESSON 1.6
EVOLUTION OF MEDIA
The media has transformed itself based on
two things – (1) how information is presented;
and (2) how the connection is established.
Woodcut printing on cloth or on paper was used
in the early 15th century. It was in 1436 when
Johannes Gutenberg started working on a
printing press which used relief printing and a
molding system. Now, the modern printing
Figure 1. Modern Printing Press
press delivers messages in print, such as
newspapers, textbooks, and magazines.
LESSON 1.6 EVOLUTION OF MEDIA
In the 1800s, the telegraph was developed
followed by the telephone which made the two-
way communication possible. Message sending
and receiving can now be done both ways
simultaneously.
Figure 2. Telegraph in the 1800s
LESSON 1.6 EVOLUTION OF MEDIA
At the beginning of the 1900s, broadcasting and Later on, a combination of both audio and
recorded media were introduced. Radio and video information made the audience’s
television were used to send sound and video to viewing experience more exciting. Films and
homes and offices through electromagnetic movies became popular as they catered to
spectrum or radio waves. Audio (lower frequency larger audiences.
band) or video (higher frequency band) content
can be received depending on the frequency used.
LESSON 1.6 EVOLUTION OF MEDIA
In line with this development, the audience
As communication devices also evolved and regardless of their professions can now
became pervasive. So did information interact with one another and are no longer
distribution. A photo taken using a smartphone disconnected. News sites can even get news
can immediately be uploaded and share on stories for example from Twitter or other
Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Community social media sites. According to Claudine
websites such as OLX.ph, a Philippine Beaumont, author from The Telegraph, one
counterpart of ebay.com, let its users buy and sell good example of this happened on January
items online. This eliminates the need for going to 15, 2009, when dozens of New Yorkers sent
physical stores. ‘tweets’ about a plane crash in the city.
LESSON 1.6 EVOLUTION OF MEDIA
Figure 3 shows one of the first photos taken
from a Twitter user, Jānis Krūms, showing the
drowned plane with survivors standing on its
News about the US Airways Flight 1549 which
wings waiting for rescue. It was instantly
was forced to land in the Hudson River in
forwarded across Twitter and used by
Manhattan, USA immediately spread all over the
numerous blogs and news websites, causing
country. All plane’s engine shut down when it
the TwitPic service to crash due to multiple
struck a flock of geese, minutes after take-off
views. In this regard, Twitter users were able
from New York’s LaGuardia Airport.
to break the news of the incident around 15
minutes before the mainstream media have
alerted the public about crash incident.
LESSON 1.6 EVOLUTION OF MEDIA
This is typical example of how individuals
can now deliver content to everyone and
connections are no longer controlled by
professionals.
Figure 3. A screenshot of Janis Krums’ tweet
about a plane crash in Hudson
LESSON 1.6 EVOLUTION OF MEDIA
What Does Media Do for Us?
In the first decade of the 21st century,
Media fulfills several basic roles in our American television viewers could peek in on
society. One obvious role is entertainment. a conflicted Texas high school football team in
Media can act as a springboard for our Friday Night Lights; the violence-plagued
imaginations, a source of fantasy, and an outlet drug trade in Baltimore in The Wire; a 1960s-
for escapism. In the 19th century, Victorian Manhattan ad agency in Mad Men; or the last
readers disillusioned by the grimness of the surviving band of humans in a distant,
Industrial Revolution found themselves drawn miserable future in Battlestar Galactica.
into fantastic worlds of fairies and other Through bringing us stories of all kinds, media
fictitious beings. has the power to take us away from ourselves.
LESSON 1.6 EVOLUTION OF MEDIA
What Does Media Do for Us?
Books and magazines provide a more in-depth
Media can also provide information and look at a wide range of subjects. The free
education. Information can come in many online encyclopedia Wikipedia has articles on
forms, and it may sometimes be difficult to topics from presidential nicknames to child
separate from entertainment. Today, newspapers prodigies to tongue twisters in various
and news-oriented television and radio languages. The Massachusetts Institute of
programs make available stories from across the Technology (MIT) has posted free lecture
globe, allowing readers or viewers in London to notes, exams, and audio and video recordings
access voices and videos from Baghdad, Tokyo, of classes on its OpenCourseWare website,
or Buenos Aires. allowing anyone with an Internet connection
access to world-class professors.
LESSON 1.6 EVOLUTION OF MEDIA
What Does Media Do for Us?
The Internet is a fundamentally democratic
Another useful aspect of media is its ability medium that allows everyone who can get
to act as a public forum for the discussion of online the ability to express their opinions
important issues. In newspapers or other through, for example, blogging or podcasting
periodicals, letters to the editor allow readers to —though whether anyone will hear is another
respond to journalists or to voice their opinions question.
on the issues of the day. These letters were an
important part of U.S. newspapers even when
the nation was a British colony, and they have
served as a means of public discourse ever
since.
LESSON 1.6 EVOLUTION OF MEDIA
What Does Media Do for Us?
But purveyors of mass media may be
Similarly, media can be used to monitor beholden to particular agendas because of
government, business, and other institutions. political slant, advertising funds, or
Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle ideological bias, thus constraining their ability
exposed the miserable conditions in the turn-of- to act as a watchdog. The following are some
the-century meatpacking industry; and in the of these agendas:
Entertaining and providing an outlet for the
early 1970s, Washington Post reporters Bob imagination
Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered Educating and informing
Serving as a public forum for the discussion of
evidence of the Watergate break-in and
important issues
subsequent cover-up, which eventually led to Acting as a watchdog for government, business, and
the resignation of President Richard Nixon. other institutions
LESSON 1.6 EVOLUTION OF MEDIA
It’s important to remember, though, that not Television provides vastly more visual
all media are created equal. While some forms information than radio and is more dynamic
of mass communication are better suited to than a static printed page; it can also be used
entertainment, others make more sense as a to broadcast live events to a nationwide
venue for spreading information. In terms of audience, as in the annual State of the Union
print media, books are durable and able to address given by the U.S. president. However,
contain lots of information, but are relatively it is also a one-way medium—that is, it allows
slow and expensive to produce; in contrast, for very little direct person-to-person
newspapers are comparatively cheaper and communication.
quicker to create, making them a better medium
for the quick turnover of daily news.
LESSON 1.6 EVOLUTION OF MEDIA
The 1960s media theorist Marshall McLuhan
In contrast, the Internet encourages public took these ideas one step further, famously
discussion of issues and allows nearly everyone coining the phrase “the medium is the message
who wants a voice to have one. However, the (McLuhan, 1964).” By this, McLuhan meant
Internet is also largely unmoderated. Users may that every medium delivers information in a
have to wade through thousands of inane different way and that content is
comments or misinformed amateur opinions to fundamentally shaped by the medium of
find quality information. transmission. For example, although television
news has the advantage of offering video and
live coverage, making a story come alive more
vividly, it is also a faster-paced medium.
LESSON 1.6 EVOLUTION OF MEDIA
That means more stories get covered in less Or, as computer scientist Alan Kay put it,
depth. A story told on television will probably “Each medium has a special way of
be flashier, less in-depth, and with less context representing ideas that emphasize particular
than the same story covered in a monthly ways of thinking and de-emphasize others
magazine; therefore, people who get the (Kay, 1994).” Kay was writing in 1994, when
majority of their news from television may have the Internet was just transitioning from an
a particular view of the world shaped not by the academic research network to an open public
content of what they watch but its medium. system.
LESSON 1.6 EVOLUTION OF MEDIA
In an essay about television’s effects on
contemporary fiction, writer David Foster Wallace
A decade and a half later, with the Internet
scoffed at the “reactionaries who regard TV as
firmly ensconced in our daily lives, McLuhan’s
some malignancy visited on an innocent populace,
intellectual descendants are the media analysts
sapping IQs and compromising SAT scores while
who claim that the Internet is making us better we all sit there on ever fatter bottoms with little
at associative thinking, or more democratic, or mesmerized spirals revolving in our eyes….
shallower. But McLuhan’s claims don’t leave Treating television as evil is just as reductive and
much space for individual autonomy or silly as treating it like a toaster with pictures
resistance. (Wallace, 1997).” Nonetheless, media messages and
technologies affect us in countless ways, some of
which probably won’t be sorted out until long in the
future.
LESSON 1.6 EVOLUTION OF MEDIA
KEY
TAKEAWAYS
Media fulfills several roles in society, including the Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing
following: press enabled the mass production of media,
1. entertaining and providing an outlet for the which was then industrialized by Friedrich
imagination, Koenig in the early 1800s. These innovations led
2. educating and informing, to the daily newspaper, which united the
3. serving as a public forum for the discussion of urbanized, industrialized populations of the 19th
important issues, and century.
4. acting as a watchdog for government, business, and
other institutions.
LESSON 1.6 EVOLUTION OF MEDIA
KEY
TAKEAWAYS
In the 20th century, radio allowed advertisers to reach Transitions from one technology to another have
a mass audience and helped spur the consumerism of greatly affected the media industry, although it is
the 1920s—and the Great Depression of the 1930s. difficult to say whether technology caused a
After World War II, television boomed in the United cultural shift or resulted from it. The ability to
States and abroad, though its concentration in the make technology small and affordable enough to
hands of three major networks led to accusations of fit into the home is an important aspect of the
homogenization. The spread of cable and subsequent popularization of new technologies.
deregulation in the 1980s and 1990s led to more
channels, but not necessarily to more diverse
ownership.
