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This part of our web guide focuses on the history of media.

Before Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the movable type printing press in the 15th century, books were painstakingly handwritten, and no two copies were exactly the same. The printing press revolutionized the mass production of print media, making books more accessible and setting the stage for newspaper and magazine media.

The contemporary media age traces its origins back to the electrical telegraph, patented by Samuel Morse in 1837. Suddenly, communication was no longer tied to physical transportation, and messages could travel vast distances. This breakthrough paved the way for the media landscape we know today, which includes newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and online media.

The modern newspaper originated in Europe. The oldest direct handwritten news sheets circulated in Venice as early as 1566, covering information on wars and politics in Italy and Europe. The first printed newspapers were published weekly in Germany, beginning in 1605. Typically, they were censored by the government, so they reported foreign news and current prices. Gazettes, known as , emerged in mid-16th-century Venice. These weekly publications influenced the format and appearance of the newspapers we now know, although the German-language Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien, which began print in 1605, is generally cited as the first newspaper. By the 17th century, newspapers were often information sheets for merchants. In the 1830s, high-speed presses allowed newspapers to print thousands of copies cheaply, leading to their widespread availability and popularity. Today, many newspapers have abandoned their print versions entirely and are published solely online.

Although there may have been similar published material in Ancient China, the modern magazine, as we know it, took shape after the invention of printing in the West. In the 17th century, various forms of printed material, such as pamphlets, broadsides, ballads, chapbooks, and almanacs, laid the groundwork for magazines. The German Erbauliche Monaths-Unterredungen, published from 1663 to 1668, is generally acknowledged to be the earliest magazine. It covered a variety of topics appealing to specific interests.

In the late 19th century, scientists, including Heinrich Rudolf Hertz and James Clerk Maxwell, laid the groundwork for radio technology by proving the existence of electromagnetic radiation. Hertz conducted experiments that transmitted electromagnetic waves (later known as radio waves) through the air, confirming Maxwell's theories. Scientists explored the optical qualities of these waves, demonstrating refraction, diffraction, polarization, interference, and standing waves. In a series of lectures in 1894, Oliver Lodge showcased how to transmit and detect radio waves using a device he called the coherer. Around 1920, radio broadcasting gained popularity. The Brox Sisters, a singing group, gathered around radios during this time, and their performances reached audios over the radio waves. Radio evolved into the first mass medium for electronic information dissemination between 1920 and 1945 and profoundly impacted creating a mass media that connected people across the nation, shaping communication and entertainment. Rural and urban families would gather around the radio for news and their favorite programs.

The concept of television emerged from the work of several individuals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Early transmissions used mechanical rotating perforated disks to scan scenes into a time-varying signal, which would be reconstructed at a receiver, approximating the original image. Development was interrupted by World War II, after which all-electronic methods of scanning and displaying images became standard. Television became a mass medium for advertising, propaganda, and entertainment, largely supplanting radio, although both still coexist today. Color television was developed in the mid-20th century and introduced in the United States in the 1950s. Most countries now use digital TV standards, conserving radio spectrum bandwidth. Today, television is distributed over the Internet, funded by advertising, private and government organizations, or subscription-based services.

The origins of social media might be traced back to May 24, 1844, when Samuel Morse tapped out the first electronic message using Morse code: "What hath God wrought?"

However, the modern origins of the Internet and social media point to the emergence of the Advanced Projects Agency Network (ARPANET in 1969. Created by the U.S. Department of Defense, ARPANET allowed interconnected universities to share data, laying the groundwork for digital communication.

Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) were a precursor to the modern form of the World Wide Web, social networks, and other aspects of the Internet.

 

 

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