Chapter 1 Flashcards
Hunter/Gatherer Societies
Oral tradition Stories around Campfires Passed on from person to person
Oldest Known Pictographs
About 3500 BC
Pictographs
Carved in stone in the middle east by Sumerians
Found around the world, Cave paintings France,
Throughout the Americas
The invention of Papyrus
About 2500 BC
Papyrus
A kind of Paper made from a grass like plant called
Sedge
First Information Revolution
Storytelling subsumed but not eliminate.
Used mostly for religious purposes, writing for
governance, and records of commerce.
Only a very small minority could read and write
Pictographs evolved into phonetic writing
By 1000 BC
Once stored in written form
Information/communication could now reach a new and wider audience…
ABOUT 500 BC Socrates
argued that “Knowledge” should be reserved for the privileged classes.
Socrates
He had a vested interest as a scholar to protect the Socratic method… oral dialogue and discussion as the method of teaching.
By 200 BC Greeks
had perfected parchment Made of goat and sheep skin.
in China by 100 AD
“paper was invented
cheaper to produce
Chinese writing thousands of pictographic characters
Until about 1300 AD
in Europe paper not used widely
Why were these developments a Big Deal?
PAPER AND PARCHMENT MEANT THAT INFORMATION COULD BE STORED CHEAPER AND MORE EASILY THAN PREVIOUSLY.
As Socrates predicted
wider and less controlled information became possible…
people in differing societies could share information
among themselves and with others far away.
A common theme in the study of the history of communication
older methods of communication do not entirely disappear with the advent of new technology but rather is subsumed by the new technology.
copying the information
was wanted by hand…
Either by one’s self or a scribe
Petrarch, 14th Century Italian Poet
an unheard of personal library of 100 manuscripts
that he had copied one by one by himself
Knowledge and the Power that it brings
typically belongs first to an elite group of people.
POWER + AUTHORITY+ $$$
HAVE ALWAYS BEEN EQUATED WITH CONTROL OVER THE MEDIA OF THE DAY!
Slowly societies became more literate…
demand for manuscripts flourished
but a scribe could only make one copy at a time
Second Information Revolution- Communication
Began: It was the invention of the moveable type printing press.
In Germany in 1455 by Johannes Gutenberg.
a wooden printing press had actually been invented 200 years earlier.
Where?
China. By 1445 it is believed that they were also perfecting a copper press.
Printing Press
The innovation that made Gutenberg’s invention so important
was to line up individual letters that he could inked then press
with paper to produce copies.
First book printed by moveable type
The Bible
The press quickly adopted throughout Europe
The price of bibles plummeted.
By 1470 the cost of the French mechanically printed bible was 1/5 the
cost of a hand printed one.
The Printing Press
knowledge, would have wider and wider accessibility
At first the religious powers in Roman thought it was a great thing but then….
Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation changed that.
Oct. 31, 1517 Posted on the bulletin board in the Wittenberg Germany church:
“Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences”
(95 Theses)
For the first time now
Knowledge/information/communication was very portable.
Libraries grew and multiplied
now information could be duplicated easily and travel to people beyond the local individual that created it.
rise of modern government
and an important element of the scientific and technical/industrial revolution
scientific and technical/industrial revolution
No longer parchment
Books stored more compactly on end.
Classic works read (and interpreted) simultaneously in far flung areas.
Easier to share information with future generations.
Early efforts to Communicate
First the spoken word
Pictographs
The written word
Finally print
Essentials to the concept of MASS COMMUNICATION and CONVERGENCE
Storability of information
Portability and of information
Accessibility of information
Definition of Mass communication
Mass communication is information that becomes available to a large audience quickly.
We live today in the midst of the
Third Communication Revolution
Convergence
Definition: The coming together of computing, telecommunications and media in a digital environment.
