the media evolution essay

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Introduction

2 A Short History of Media and Culture

Learning Objectives

Discuss events that impacted the adaptation of mass media.
Explain how different technological transitions have shaped media industries.

Until Johannes Gutenberg’s 15th-century invention of the movable type printing press, books were painstakingly handwritten, and no two copies were exactly the same. The printing press made the mass production of print media possible. Not only was it much cheaper to produce written material, but new transportation technologies also made it easier for texts to reach a wide audience. It’s hard to overstate the importance of Gutenberg’s invention, which helped usher in massive cultural movements like the European Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation. In 1810, another German printer, Friedrich Koenig, pushed media production even further when he essentially hooked the steam engine up to a printing press, enabling the industrialization of printed media. In 1800, a hand-operated printing press could produce about 480 pages per hour; Koenig’s machine more than doubled this rate. (By the 1930s, many printing presses had an output of 3000 pages an hour.) This increased efficiency helped lead to the rise of the daily newspaper.

As the first Europeans settled 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 back home. But as the people developed their own way of life—their own culture —newspapers helped give expression to that culture. Political scientist Benedict Anderson has argued that newspapers also helped forge a 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.”

The United States continued to develop, and the newspaper was the perfect medium for the increasingly urbanized Americans of the 19th century, who could no longer get their local news merely through gossip and word of mouth. These Americans were living in an unfamiliar world, and newspapers and other publications helped them negotiate the rapidly changing world. The Industrial Revolution meant that people had more leisure time and more money, and media helped them figure out how to spend both.

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.In countless ways, large and small, American life was transformed during the 1920s, at least in urban areas. Cigarettes, cosmetics, and synthetic fabrics such as rayon became staples of American life. Newspaper gossip columns, illuminated billboards, and commercial airplane flights were novelties during the 1920s. The United States became a consumer society.” [1]

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. Along with a television, the typical U.S. family owned a car and a house in the suburbs, all of which contributed to the nation’s thriving consumer-based economy.

Broadcast television was the dominant form of mass media. There were just three major networks, 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, he could read it whenever and wherever he’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 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. Did radio fuel the consumerist boom of the 1920s, or did the radio become wildly popular because it appealed to a society that was already exploring consumerist tendencies? Probably a little bit of both. Technological innovations such as the steam engine, electricity, wireless communication, and the Internet have all had lasting and significant effects on American culture. As media historians Asa Briggs and Peter Burke note, every crucial invention came with “a change in historical perspectives.” [2] 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. Suddenly, information from distant places was nearly as accessible as local news. When the first transatlantic cable was laid in 1858, allowing near-instantaneous communication from the United States to Europe, The London Times described it as “the greatest discovery since that of Columbus, a vast enlargement…given to the sphere of human activity.” [2] Celebrations broke out in New York as people marveled at the new media. Telegraph lines began to stretch across the globe, making their own kind of world wide 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 radio mania that swept the country inspired hundreds of applications for broadcasting licenses, some from newspapers and other news outlets, while other radio station operators included retail stores, schools, and even cities. In the 1920s, large media networks—including the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)—were launched, and they soon began to dominate the airwaves. In 1926, they owned 6.4 percent of U.S. broadcasting stations; by 1931, that number had risen to 30 percent. [2]

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, banking on the hope that Americans would welcome an inexpensive, easy-to-use camera into their homes, as they had with the radio and telephone. 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 1920s, Hollywood had already created its first stars, most notably Charlie Chaplin. 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, which consists of an image being converted to electrical impulses, transmitted through wires or radio waves, and then reconverted into images, 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 school work 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 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.” This process, also known as convergence, will be discussed in later chapters and is a force that is shaping the face of media today.

Key Takeaways

Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press enabled the mass production of media, which was then industrialized by Friedrich Koenig in the early 1800s. These innovations enabled the daily newspaper, which united the urbanized, industrialized populations of the 19th century.
In the 20th century, radio allowed advertisers to reach a mass audience and helped spur the consumerism of the 1920s—and the Great Depression of the 1930s. After World War II, television boomed in the United States and abroad, though its concentration in the hands of three major networks led to accusations of conformity. The spread of cable and subsequent deregulation in the 1980s and 1990s led to more channels, but not necessarily more diverse ownership.
Technological transitions have also had great effect on the media industry, although it is difficult to say whether technology caused a cultural shift or rather resulted from it. The ability to make technology small and affordable enough to fit into the home is an important aspect of the popularization of new technologies.

[1] “The Consumer Economy and Mass Entertainment,” https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3396 (accessed July 11, 2023).

[2] Asa Briggs and Peter Burke, A Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet, Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2005.

This chapter is adapted from Chapter 1 of Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication by The Saylor Foundation.

Share This Book

school Campus Bookshelves
menu_book Bookshelves
perm_media Learning Objects
login Login
how_to_reg Request Instructor Account
hub Instructor Commons

Margin Size

Download Page (PDF)
Download Full Book (PDF)
Periodic Table
Physics Constants
Scientific Calculator
Reference & Cite
Tools expand_more
Readability

selected template will load here

This action is not available.

9.3: The Evolution of the Media

Last updated
Save as PDF
Page ID 82235

$ \newcommand{\vecs}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } $

$ \newcommand{\vecd}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash {#1}}} $

$ \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}$ $ \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}$

( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) $ \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}$

$ \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}$ $ \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}$

$ \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}$ $ \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}$

$ \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}$

$ \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}$

$ \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}$

$ \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}$

$ \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}$

$ \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}$

$ \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}$

$ \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}$

$ \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}$

$ \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}$ $ \newcommand{\AA}{\unicode[.8,0]{x212B}}$

$ \newcommand{\vectorA}[1]{\vec{#1}} % arrow$

$ \newcommand{\vectorAt}[1]{\vec{\text{#1}}} % arrow$

$ \newcommand{\vectorB}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } $

$ \newcommand{\vectorC}[1]{\textbf{#1}} $

$ \newcommand{\vectorD}[1]{\overrightarrow{#1}} $

$ \newcommand{\vectorDt}[1]{\overrightarrow{\text{#1}}} $

$ \newcommand{\vectE}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash{\mathbf {#1}}}} $

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Discuss the history of major media formats
Compare important changes in media types over time
Explain how citizens learn political information from the media

The evolution of the media has been fraught with concerns and problems. Accusations of mind control, bias, and poor quality have been thrown at the media on a regular basis. Yet the growth of communications technology allows people today to find more information more easily than any previous generation. Mass media can be print, radio, television, or Internet news. They can be local, national, or international. They can be broad or limited in their focus. The choices are tremendous.

Print Media

Newspapers spread information about local events and activities. The Stamp Tax of 1765 raised costs for publishers, however, leading several newspapers to fold under the increased cost of paper. The repeal of the Stamp Tax in 1766 quieted concerns for a short while, but editors and writers soon began questioning the right of the British to rule over the colonies. Newspapers took part in the effort to inform citizens of British misdeeds and incite attempts to revolt. Readership across the colonies increased to nearly forty thousand homes (among a total population of two million), and daily papers sprang up in large cities. [2]

Although newspapers united for a common cause during the Revolutionary War, the divisions that occurred during the Constitutional Convention and the United States’ early history created a change. The publication of the Federalist Papers , as well as the Anti-Federalist Papers, in the 1780s, moved the nation into the party press era , in which partisanship and political party loyalty dominated the choice of editorial content. One reason was cost. Subscriptions and advertisements did not fully cover printing costs, and political parties stepped in to support presses that aided the parties and their policies. Papers began printing party propaganda and messages, even publicly attacking political leaders like George Washington. Despite the antagonism of the press, Washington and several other founders felt that freedom of the press was important for creating an informed electorate. Indeed, freedom of the press is enshrined in the Bill of Rights in the first amendment.

Between 1830 and 1860, machines and manufacturing made the production of newspapers faster and less expensive. Benjamin Day’s paper, the New York Sun , used technology like the linotype machine to mass-produce papers. Roads and waterways were expanded, decreasing the costs of distributing printed materials to subscribers. New newspapers popped up. The popular penny press papers and magazines contained more gossip than news, but they were affordable at a penny per issue. Over time, papers expanded their coverage to include racing, weather, and educational materials. By 1841, some news reporters considered themselves responsible for upholding high journalistic standards, and under the editor (and politician) Horace Greeley, the New-York Tribune became a nationally respected newspaper. By the end of the Civil War, more journalists and newspapers were aiming to meet professional standards of accuracy and impartiality. [3]

Image A is of Benjamin Day seated. Image B is of a newspaper titled

Yet readers still wanted to be entertained. Joseph Pulitzer and the New York World gave them what they wanted. The tabloid-style paper included editorial pages, cartoons, and pictures, while the front-page news was sensational and scandalous. This style of coverage became known as yellow journalism . Ads sold quickly thanks to the paper’s popularity, and the Sunday edition became a regular feature of the newspaper. As the New York World’s circulation increased, other papers copied Pulitzer’s style in an effort to sell papers. Competition between newspapers led to increasingly sensationalized covers and crude issues.

In 1896, Adolph Ochs purchased the New York Times with the goal of creating a dignified newspaper that would provide readers with important news about the economy, politics, and the world rather than gossip and comics. The New York Times brought back the informational model, which exhibits impartiality and accuracy and promotes transparency in government and politics. With the arrival of the Progressive Era, the media began muckraking : the writing and publishing of news coverage that exposed corrupt business and government practices. Investigative work like Upton Sinclair’s serialized novel The Jungle led to changes in the way industrial workers were treated and local political machines were run. The Pure Food and Drug Act and other laws were passed to protect consumers and employees from unsafe food processing practices. Local and state government officials who participated in bribery and corruption became the centerpieces of exposés.

There are two potential concerns about the decline of investigative journalism in the digital age. First, one potential shortcoming is that the quality of news content will become uneven in depth and quality, which could lead to a less informed citizenry. Second, if investigative journalism in its systematic form declines, then the cases of wrongdoing that are the objects of such investigations would have a greater chance of going on undetected. In the twenty-first century, newspapers have struggled to stay financially stable. Print media earned $44.9 billion from ads in 2003, but only $16.4 billion from ads in 2014. [5]

Given the countless alternate forms of news, many of which are free, newspaper subscriptions have fallen. Advertising and especially classified ad revenue dipped. Many newspapers now maintain both a print and an Internet presence in order to compete for readers. The rise of free news blogs, such as the Huffington Post , have made it difficult for newspapers to force readers to purchase online subscriptions to access material they place behind a digital paywall . Some local newspapers, in an effort to stay visible and profitable, have turned to social media, like Facebook and Twitter. Stories can be posted and retweeted, allowing readers to comment and forward material. [6]

Yet, overall, newspapers have adapted, becoming leaner—though less thorough and investigative—versions of their earlier selves.

Radio news made its appearance in the 1920s. The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) began running sponsored news programs and radio dramas. Comedy programs, such as Amos ’n’ Andy , The Adventures of Gracie , and Easy Aces , also became popular during the 1930s, as listeners were trying to find humor during the Depression. Talk shows, religious shows, and educational programs followed, and by the late 1930s, game shows and quiz shows were added to the airwaves. Almost 83 percent of households had a radio by 1940, and most tuned in regularly. [7]

Image A is of Goodman and Jane Ace. Image B is of Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll cutting a cake with a shovel.

Not just something to be enjoyed by those in the city, the proliferation of the radio brought communications to rural America as well. News and entertainment programs were also targeted to rural communities. WLS in Chicago provided the National Farm and Home Hour and the WLS Barn Dance . WSM in Nashville began to broadcast the live music show called the Grand Ole Opry , which is still broadcast every week and is the longest live broadcast radio show in U.S. history. [8]

Yet it was Franklin D. Roosevelt who became famous for harnessing the political power of radio. On entering office in March 1933, President Roosevelt needed to quiet public fears about the economy and prevent people from removing their money from the banks. He delivered his first radio speech eight days after assuming the presidency:

Roosevelt would sit down and explain his ideas and actions directly to the people on a regular basis, confident that he could convince voters of their value. [12]

His speeches became known as “ fireside chats ” and formed an important way for him to promote his New Deal agenda. Roosevelt’s combination of persuasive rhetoric and the media allowed him to expand both the government and the presidency beyond their traditional roles. [13]

Image A is of three people sitting in rocking chairs with a radio in front of them. Image B is of Franklin D. Roosevelt seated with several microphones on a desk in front of him.

During this time, print news still controlled much of the information flowing to the public. Radio news programs were limited in scope and number. But in the 1940s the German annexation of Austria, conflict in Europe, and World War II changed radio news forever. The need and desire for frequent news updates about the constantly evolving war made newspapers, with their once-a-day printing, too slow. People wanted to know what was happening, and they wanted to know immediately. Although initially reluctant to be on the air, reporter Edward R. Murrow of CBS began reporting live about Germany’s actions from his posts in Europe. His reporting contained news and some commentary, and even live coverage during Germany’s aerial bombing of London. To protect covert military operations during the war, the White House had placed guidelines on the reporting of classified information, making a legal exception to the First Amendment’s protection against government involvement in the press. Newscasters voluntarily agreed to suppress information, such as about the development of the atomic bomb and movements of the military, until after the events had occurred. [14]

The number of professional and amateur radio stations grew quickly. Initially, the government exerted little legislative control over the industry. Stations chose their own broadcasting locations, signal strengths, and frequencies, which sometimes overlapped with one another or with the military, leading to tuning problems for listeners. The Radio Act (1927) created the Federal Radio Commission (FRC), which made the first effort to set standards, frequencies, and license stations. The Commission was under heavy pressure from Congress, however, and had little authority. The Communications Act of 1934 ended the FRC and created the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which continued to work with radio stations to assign frequencies and set national standards, as well as oversee other forms of broadcasting and telephones. The FCC regulates interstate communications to this day. For example, it prohibits the use of certain profane words during certain hours on public airwaves.

Prior to WWII, radio frequencies were broadcast using amplitude modulation (AM). After WWII, frequency modulation (FM) broadcasting, with its wider signal bandwidth, provided clear sound with less static and became popular with stations wanting to broadcast speeches or music with high-quality sound. While radio’s importance for distributing news waned with the increase in television usage, it remained popular for listening to music, educational talk shows, and sports broadcasting. Talk stations began to gain ground in the 1980s on both AM and FM frequencies, restoring radio’s importance in politics. By the 1990s, talk shows had gone national, showcasing broadcasters like Rush Limbaugh and Don Imus.

In 1990, Sirius Satellite Radio began a campaign for FCC approval of satellite radio. The idea was to broadcast digital programming from satellites in orbit, eliminating the need for local towers. By 2001, two satellite stations had been approved for broadcasting. Satellite radio has greatly increased programming with many specialized offerings, such as channels dedicated to particular artists. It is generally subscription-based and offers a larger area of coverage, even to remote areas such as deserts and oceans. Satellite programming is also exempt from many of the FCC regulations that govern regular radio stations. Howard Stern, for example, was fined more than $2 million while on public airwaves, mainly for his sexually explicit discussions. [15] Stern moved to Sirius Satellite in 2006 and has since been free of oversight and fines.

Television combined the best attributes of radio and pictures and changed media forever. The first official broadcast in the United States was President Franklin Roosevelt’s speech at the opening of the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. The public did not immediately begin buying televisions, but coverage of World War II changed their minds. CBS reported on war events and included pictures and maps that enhanced the news for viewers. By the 1950s, the price of television sets had dropped, more televisions stations were being created, and advertisers were buying up spots.

As on the radio, quiz shows and games dominated the television airwaves. But when Edward R. Murrow made the move to television in 1951 with his news show See It Now , television journalism gained its foothold. As television programming expanded, more channels were added. Networks such as ABC, CBS, and NBC began nightly newscasts, and local stations and affiliates followed suit.

An image of Edward R. Murrow seated behind a desk.

Even more than radio, television allows politicians to reach out and connect with citizens and voters in deeper ways. Before television, few voters were able to see a president or candidate speak or answer questions in an interview. Now everyone can decode body language and tone to decide whether candidates or politicians are sincere. Presidents can directly convey their anger, sorrow, or optimism during addresses.

The first television advertisements, run by presidential candidates Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson in the early 1950s, were mainly radio jingles with animation or short question-and-answer sessions. In 1960, John F. Kennedy ’s campaign used a Hollywood-style approach to promote his image as young and vibrant. The Kennedy campaign ran interesting and engaging ads, featuring Kennedy, his wife Jacqueline, and everyday citizens who supported him.

The “Checkers speech” was remembered more for humanizing Nixon than for proving he had not taken money from the campaign account. Yet it was enough to quiet accusations. Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro similarly used television to answer accusations in 1984, holding a televised press conference to answer questions for over two hours about her husband’s business dealings and tax returns. [17]

In 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson was ahead in the polls, and he let Barry Goldwater’s campaign know he did not want to debate. [19] Nixon, who ran for president again in 1968 and 1972, declined to debate. Then in 1976, President Gerald Ford, who was behind in the polls, invited Jimmy Carter to debate, and televised debates became a regular part of future presidential campaigns. [20]

Between the 1960s and the 1990s, presidents often used television to reach citizens and gain support for policies. When they made speeches, the networks and their local affiliates carried them. With few independent local stations available, a viewer had little alternative but to watch. During this “Golden Age of Presidential Television,” presidents had a strong command of the media. [21]

In 1995, President Bill Clinton comforted and encouraged the families of the employees and children killed at the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building. Clinton reminded the nation that children learn through action, and so we must speak up against violence and face evil acts with good acts. [24]

Following the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush’s bullhorn speech from the rubble of Ground Zero in New York similarly became a rally. Bush spoke to the workers and first responders and encouraged them, but his short speech became a viral clip demonstrating the resilience of New Yorkers and the anger of a nation. [25] He told New Yorkers, the country, and the world that Americans could hear the frustration and anguish of New York, and that the terrorists would soon hear the United States.

Image A is of Hillary and Bill Clinton laying flowers on a memorial site, surrounded by several children. Image B is of George W. Bush standing on a pile of rubble with a bullhorn to his mouth, surrounded by several people.

Following their speeches, both presidents also received a bump in popularity. Clinton’s approval rating rose from 46 to 51 percent, and Bush’s from 51 to 90 percent. [26]

New Media Trends

This effect, in turn, also changes the president’s ability to reach out to citizens. For example, viewership of the president’s annual State of the Union address has decreased over the years, from sixty-seven million viewers in 1993 to thirty-two million in 2015. [28]

Citizens who want to watch reality television and movies can easily avoid the news, leaving presidents with no sure way to communicate with the public. [29] Other voices, such as those of talk show hosts and political pundits, now fill the gap.

The First Social Media Candidate

When president-elect Barack Obama admitted an addiction to his Blackberry, the signs were clear: A new generation was assuming the presidency. [31] Obama’s use of technology was a part of life, not a campaign pretense. Perhaps for this reason, he was the first candidate to fully embrace social media.

While John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, focused on traditional media to run his campaign, Obama did not. One of Obama’s campaign advisors was Chris Hughes, a cofounder of Facebook. The campaign allowed Hughes to create a powerful online presence for Obama, with sites on YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, and more. Podcasts and videos were available for anyone looking for information about the candidate. These efforts made it possible for information to be forwarded easily between friends and colleagues. It also allowed Obama to connect with a younger generation that was often left out of politics.

By Election Day, Obama’s skill with the web was clear: he had over two million Facebook supporters, while McCain had 600,000. Obama had 112,000 followers on Twitter, and McCain had only 4,600. Matthew Fraser and Soumitra Dutta, “Obama’s win means future elections must be fought online,” Guardian , 7 November 2008.

Are there any disadvantages to a presidential candidate’s use of social media and the Internet for campaign purposes? Why or why not?

The availability of the Internet and social media has moved some control of the message back into the presidents’ and candidates’ hands. Politicians can now connect to the people directly, bypassing journalists. When Barack Obama’s minister, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, was accused of making inflammatory racial sermons in 2008, Obama used YouTube to respond to charges that he shared Wright’s beliefs. The video drew more than seven million views. [32] To reach out to supporters and voters, the White House maintains a YouTube channel and a Facebook site, as did the recent Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner.

Obama was recorded by a Huffington Post volunteer saying that some Midwesterners “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” due to their frustration with the economy. [34] These statements became nightmares for the campaigns. As journalism continues to scale back and hire fewer professional writers in an effort to control costs, citizen journalism may become the new normal. [35] Another shift in the new media is a change in viewers’ preferred programming. Younger viewers, especially members of generation X and millennials, like their newscasts to be humorous. The popularity of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report demonstrate that news, even political news, can win young viewers if delivered well. [36]

Such soft news presents news in an entertaining and approachable manner, painlessly introducing a variety of topics. While the depth or quality of reporting may be less than ideal, these shows can sound an alarm as needed to raise citizen awareness. [37]

An image of Stephen Colbert and Ray Odierno seated on opposite sides of a table, facing each other.

Because viewers of political comedy shows watch the news frequently, they may, in fact, be more politically knowledgeable than citizens viewing national news. In two studies researchers interviewed respondents and asked knowledge questions about current events and situations. Viewers of The Daily Show scored more correct answers than viewers of news programming and news stations. [40] That being said, it is not clear whether the number of viewers is large enough to make a big impact on politics, nor do we know whether the learning is long term or short term. [41]

Becoming a Citizen Journalist

Local government and politics need visibility. College students need a voice. Why not become a citizen journalist? City and county governments hold meetings on a regular basis and students rarely attend. Yet issues relevant to students are often discussed at these meetings, like increases in street parking fines, zoning for off-campus housing, and tax incentives for new businesses that employ part-time student labor. Attend some meetings, ask questions, and write about the experience on your Facebook page. Create a blog to organize your reports or use Storify to curate a social media debate. If you prefer videography, create a YouTube channel to document your reports on current events, or Tweet your live video using Periscope or Meerkat.

Not interested in government? Other areas of governance that affect students are the university or college’s Board of Regents meetings. These cover topics like tuition increases, class cuts, and changes to student conduct policies. If your state requires state institutions to open their meetings to the public, consider attending. You might be the one to notify your peers of changes that affect them.

What local meetings could you cover? What issues are important to you and your peers?

Newspapers were vital during the Revolutionary War. Later, in the party press era, party loyalty governed coverage. At the turn of the twentieth century, investigative journalism and muckraking appeared, and newspapers began presenting more professional, unbiased information. The modern print media have fought to stay relevant and cost-efficient, moving online to do so.

Most families had radios by the 1930s, making it an effective way for politicians, especially presidents, to reach out to citizens. While the increased use of television decreased the popularity of radio, talk radio still provides political information. Modern presidents also use television to rally people in times of crisis, although social media and the Internet now offer a more direct way for them to communicate. While serious newscasts still exist, younger viewers prefer soft news as a way to become informed.

Practice Questions

Why did Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside chats help the president enact his policies?
How have modern presidents used television to reach out to citizens?
Why is soft news good at reaching out and educating viewers?

[reveal-answer q=”32555″]Show Selected Answer[/reveal-answer] [hidden-answer a=”32555″]

2. The State of the Union address and “rally ’round the flag” speeches help explain policies and offer comfort after crises.

[/hidden-answer]

https://assessments.lumenlearning.co...sessments/1936

[reveal-answer q=”741677″]Show Glossary[/reveal-answer] [hidden-answer a=”741677″]

citizen journalism video and print news posted to the Internet or social media by citizens rather than the news media

digital paywall the need for a paid subscription to access published online material

muckraking news coverage focusing on exposing corrupt business and government practices

party press era period during the 1780s in which newspaper content was biased by political partisanship

soft news news presented in an entertaining style

yellow journalism sensationalized coverage of scandals and human interest stories

Fellow. American Media History . ↵
"Population in the Colonial and Continental Periods," http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/00165897ch01.pdf (November 18, 2015); Fellow. American Media History . ↵
Lars Willnat and David H. Weaver. 2014. The American Journalist in the Digital Age: Key Findings . Bloomington, IN: School of Journalism, Indiana University. ↵
Michael Barthel. 29 April 2015. "Newspapers: Factsheet," http://www.journalism.org/2015/04/29/newspapers-fact-sheet/ . ↵
"Facebook and Twitter—New but Limited Parts of the Local News System," Pew Research Center , 5 March 2015. ↵
"1940 Census," http://www.census.gov/1940census (September 6, 2015). ↵
Steve Craig. 2009. Out of the Dark: A History of Radio and Rural America . Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. ↵
"Herbert Hoover: Radio Address to the Nation on Unemployment Relief," The American Presidency Project , 18 October 1931, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=22855 . ↵
"Franklin Delano Roosevelt: First Fireside Chat," http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrfirstfiresidechat.html (August 20, 2015). ↵
"The Fireside Chats," https://www.history.com/topics/fireside-chats (November 20, 2015); Fellow. American Media History , 256. ↵
"FDR: A Voice of Hope," http://www.history.com/topics/fireside-chats (September 10, 2015). ↵
Mary E. Stuckey. 2012. "FDR, the Rhetoric of Vision, and the Creation of a National Synoptic State." Quarterly Journal of Speech 98, No. 3: 297–319. ↵
Sheila Marikar, "Howard Stern’s Five Most Outrageous Offenses," ABC News, 14 May 2012. ↵
Lee Huebner, "The Checkers Speech after 60 Years," The Atlantic , 22 September 2012. ↵
Joel K. Goldstein, "Mondale-Ferraro: Changing History," Huffington Post , 27 March 2011. ↵
Shanto Iyengar. 2016. Media Politics: A Citizen’s Guide , 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton. ↵
Bob Greene, "When Candidates said ‘No’ to Debates," CNN , 1 October 2012. ↵
"The Ford/Carter Debates," http://www.pbs.org/newshour/spc/debatingourdestiny/doc1976.html (November 21, 2015); Kayla Webley, "How the Nixon-Kennedy Debate Changed the World," Time , 23 September 2010. ↵
Matthew A. Baum and Samuel Kernell. 1999. "Has Cable Ended the Golden Age of Presidential Television?" The American Political Science Review 93, No. 1: 99–114. ↵
Alan J. Lambert1, J. P. Schott1, and Laura Scherer. 2011. "Threat, Politics, and Attitudes toward a Greater Understanding of Rally-’Round-the-Flag Effects," Current Directions in Psychological Science 20, No. 6: 343–348. ↵
Tim Groeling and Matthew A. Baum. 2008. "Crossing the Water’s Edge: Elite Rhetoric, Media Coverage, and the Rally-Round-the-Flag Phenomenon," Journal of Politics 70, No. 4: 1065–1085. ↵
"William Jefferson Clinton: Oklahoma Bombing Memorial Prayer Service Address," 23 April 1995, http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/wjcoklahomabombingspeech.htm . ↵
Ian Christopher McCaleb, "Bush tours ground zero in lower Manhattan," CNN , 14 September 2001. ↵
"Presidential Job Approval Center," http://www.gallup.com/poll/124922/presidential-job-approval-center.aspx (August 28, 2015). ↵
Alison Dagnes. 2010. Politics on Demand: The Effects of 24-hour News on American Politics . Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. ↵
"Number of Viewers of the State of the Union Addresses from 1993 to 2015 (in millions)," http://www.statista.com/statistics/252425/state-of-the-union-address-viewer-numbers (August 28, 2015). ↵
Baum and Kernell, "Has Cable Ended the Golden Age of Presidential Television?" ↵
Shanto Iyengar. 2011. "The Media Game: New Moves, Old Strategies," The Forum: Press Politics and Political Science 9, No. 1, http://pcl.stanford.edu/research/2011/iyengar-mediagame.pdf . ↵
Jeff Zeleny, "Lose the BlackBerry? Yes He Can, Maybe," New York Times , 15 November 2008. ↵
Iyengar, "The Media Game." ↵
David Corn. 29 July 2013. "Mitt Romeny’s Incredible 47-Percent Denial," http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/07/mitt-romney-47-percent-denial . ↵
Ed Pilkington, "Obama Angers Midwest Voters with Guns and Religion Remark," Guardian , 14 April 2008. ↵
Amy Mitchell, "State of the News Media 2015," Pew Research Center , 29 April 2015. ↵
Tom Huddleston, Jr., "Jon Stewart Just Punched a $250 Million Hole in Viacom’s Value," Fortune , 11 February 2015. ↵
John Zaller. 2003. "A New Standard of News Quality: Burglar Alarms for the Monitorial Citizen," Political Communication 20, No. 2: 109–130. ↵
Matthew A. Baum. 2002. "Sex, Lies and War: How Soft News Brings Foreign Policy to the Inattentive Public," American Political Science Review 96, no. 1: 91–109. ↵
Matthew Baum. 2003. "Soft News and Political Knowledge: Evidence of Absence or Absence of Evidence?" Political Communication 20, No. 2: 173–190. ↵
"Public Knowledge of Current Affairs Little Changed by News and Information Revolutions," Pew Research Center , 15 April 2007; "What You Know Depends on What You Watch: Current Events Knowledge across Popular News Sources," Fairleigh Dickinson University , 3 May 2012, http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2012/confirmed/ . ↵
Markus Prior. 2003. "Any Good News in Soft News? The Impact of Soft News Preference on Political Knowledge," Political Communication 20, No. 2: 149–171. ↵
American Government. Authored by : OpenStax. Provided by : OpenStax; Rice University. Located at : https://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]:Y1CfqFju@5/Preface . License : CC BY: Attribution . License Terms : Download for free at http://cnx.org/contents/9e28f580-0d1...c48329947ac2@1 .
Share icon. Authored by : Quan Do. Provided by : The Noun Project. Located at : https://thenounproject.com/term/share/7671/ . License : CC BY: Attribution

International Journal of Communication

Founding Editor

Larry Gross

Founding Managing Editor

Arlene Luck
Silvio Waisbord

Managing Editor

Kady Bell-Garcia

Managing Editor, Special Sections

Mark Mangoba-Agustin

Editorial Board

Sean Aday George Washington University
Omar Al-Ghazzi London School of Economics and Political Science
Ilhem Allagui Northwestern University-Qatar
Abeer Al-Najjar American University Of Sharjah
Meryl Alper Northeastern University
Adriana Amaral Universidade Paulista
Hector Amaya University of Southern California
Melissa Miriam Aronczyk Rutgers University
Jonathan David Aronson University of Southern California
Karen Arriaza Ibarra Universidad Complutense de Madrid Spain
Hanan Badr Paris Lodron University of Salzburg
Sandra Ball-Rokeach University of Southern California
Sarah Banet-Weiser University of Pennsylvania/University of Southern California
Francois Bar University of Southern California
Emma Baulch Monash University Malaysia
Yochai Benkler Harvard Law School
Lance Bennett University of Washington
TJ Billard Northwestern University
Bruce Bimber UC Santa Barbara
Pablo Javier Boczkowski Northwestern University
Mark Boukes University of Amsterdam
Nicholas David Bowman Syracuse University
danah boyd Microsoft Research / Data & Society
Michael Brüggemann University of Hamburg
Gustavo Cardoso University of Lisbon
Manuel Castells
Lik Sam Chan Chinese University of Hong Kong
Michael Chan Chinese University of Hong Kong
Jaeho Cho University of California, Davis
Lilie Chouliaraki London School of Economics and Political Science
Renita Coleman University of Texas
Simon Cottle Cardiff University
Sasha Costanza-Chock Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Nick Couldry London School of Economics and Political Science
Robert T. Craig University of Colorado at Boulder
Nick Cull University of Southern California
Afonso de Albuquerque Universidade Federal Fluminense
Michael X. Delli Carpini University of Pennsylvania
Claes de Vreese University of Amsterdam
Marco Deseriis Scuola Normale Superiore
Alexander Dhoest University of Antwerp
Susan Douglas University of Michigan
John D.H. Downing Southern Illinois University
William Dutton Michigan State University
Stephen Duncombe New York University
Richard Dyer University of London
John Nguyet Erni Hong Kong Baptist University
Lewis Allen Friedland University of Wisconsin-Madison
Anthony Y.H. Fung Chinese University of Hong Kong
Oscar Gandy University of Pennsylvania
Dilip Gaonkar Northwestern University
Myria Georgiou London School of Economics and Political Science
Homero Gil de Zúñiga University of Salamanca Pennsylvania State University
Ian Glenn University of Cape Town
Sergio Godoy Universidad Catolica de Chile
Guy J. Golan Texas Christian University
Trudy Govier University of Lethbridge
Mary L. Gray Microsoft Research & Indiana University
Larry Grossberg University of North Carolina
Manuel Alejandro Guerrero Universidad Iberoamericana
Lei Guo Fudan University
Dan Hallin University of California, San Diego
James Hamilton Stanford University
Eszter Hargittai University of Zurich
John Hartley Curtin University
Francois Heinderyckx Université Libre de Bruxelles
Andreas Hepp University of Bremen
David Hesmondhalgh University of Leeds
Tom Hollihan University of Southern California
Yu Hong Zhejiang University
Kathleen Hall Jamieson University of Pennsylvania
Henry Jenkins University of Southern California
Min Jiang University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Dal Yong Jin Simon Fraser University
Steve Jones University of Illinois-Chicago
Douglas Kellner UCLA
Su Jung Kim University of Southern California
Marwan M. Kraidy Northwestern University in Qatar
Josh Kun University of Southern California
Chin-Chuan Lee National Chengchi University
Chul-joo Lee Seoul National University
Francis Lee Chinese University of Hong Kong
Justin Lewis Cardiff University
Sonia Livingstone London School of Economics
Robin Elizabeth Mansell London School of Economics
Alice E. Marwick University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Jorg Matthes University of Vienna
Robert McChesney University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Max McCombs The University of Texas at Austin
Christine Meltzer Hanover University for Music, Theater and Media
Kaitlynn Mendes Western University
Oren Meyers University of Haifa
Toby Miller Universidad de La Frontera
Peter R. Monge University of Southern California
Seungahn Nah University of Florida
Thomas Nakayama Northeastern University
Philip Napoli Duke University
Horace Newcomb University of Georgia
Zhongdang Pan University of Wisconsin - Madison
Zizi Papacharissi University of Illinois at Chicago
Cinzia Padovani Southern Illinois University
John Durham Peters Yale University
Victor Pickard University of Pennsylvania
Alejandro Piscitelli University of Buenos Aires
Dana Polan New York University
Marshall Scott Poole University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Adam Powell University of Southern California
Shawn Mathew Powers Georgia State
Monroe Price University of Pennsylvania
Jack Linchuan Qiu National University of Singapore
Janice Radway Northwestern University
N. Bhaskara Rao Centre for Media Studies, New Delhi
Michael Renov USC Cinematic Arts
Allissa V. Richardson University of Southern California
Eric Rothenbuhler Webster University
Michael Schudson Columbia University
Ellen Seiter USC Cinematic Arts
Brian Semujju Makerere University
James Shanahan Indiana University
Limor Shifman Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Aram Sinnreich American University
Jonathan Sterne McGill University
Joseph Straubhaar University of Texas at Austin
Lukasz Szulc University of Manchester
John Thompson Cambridge University
Kjerstin Thorson Michigan State University
Katrin Tiidenberg Tallinn University
Florian Toepfl University of Passau
Yariv Tsfati University of Haifa
Joseph Turow University of Pennsylvania
Nikki Usher University of Illinois
Derek W. Vaillant University of Michigan
Baldwin Van Gorp Ku Leuven University
Jorge Vázquez-Herrero Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
Ingrid Volkmer University of Melbourne
Jay Wang University of Southern California
James Webster Northwestern University
Chris Wells Boston University
Dmitri Williams University of Southern California
Angela Xiao Wu New York University
Guobin Yang University of Pennsylvania
Dannagal G. Young University of Delaware
Barbie Zelizer Annenberg/ University of Pennsylvania
Juyan Zhang University of Texas at San Antonio
Yuezhi Zhao Simon Fraser University
Ying Zhu College of Staten Island, CUNY

For Readers
For Authors
For Librarians

PUBLISHED BY:

EDITORIAL STAFF Yvonne Gonzales Sui Wang Josh Widera Assistant Editors

ISSN: 1932-8036

Follow @IJoC_USC

Media Evolution: Emergence, Dominance, Survival and Extinction in the Media Ecology

This article presents an integrated model for understanding the evolution of media, aiming to go beyond the traditional reflections—which tend to reduce media history to a linear succession of technologies—to propose an integrated view of media evolution. Constructing a model of media evolution means going beyond the concepts used up until now—such as Bolter and Grusin’s remediation—to integrate into a single framework analytical categories such as emergence, adaptation, survival, and extinction. In this theoretical context, the article pays particular attention to the simulation processes that occur in the different phases of the evolution of a medium. Finally, a series of critical reflections on the sequential-linear and genealogical-branched evolution models are presented to propose alternatives that represent the complexity of the media ecosystem more closely.

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

11.2 The Evolution of the Internet

Learning objectives.

Define protocol and decentralization as they relate to the early Internet.
Identify technologies that made the Internet accessible.
Explain the causes and effects of the dot-com boom and crash.

From its early days as a military-only network to its current status as one of the developed world’s primary sources of information and communication, the Internet has come a long way in a short period of time. Yet there are a few elements that have stayed constant and that provide a coherent thread for examining the origins of the now-pervasive medium. The first is the persistence of the Internet—its Cold War beginnings necessarily influencing its design as a decentralized, indestructible communication network.

The second element is the development of rules of communication for computers that enable the machines to turn raw data into useful information. These rules, or protocols , have been developed through consensus by computer scientists to facilitate and control online communication and have shaped the way the Internet works. Facebook is a simple example of a protocol: Users can easily communicate with one another, but only through acceptance of protocols that include wall posts, comments, and messages. Facebook’s protocols make communication possible and control that communication.

These two elements connect the Internet’s origins to its present-day incarnation. Keeping them in mind as you read will help you comprehend the history of the Internet, from the Cold War to the Facebook era.

The History of the Internet

The near indestructibility of information on the Internet derives from a military principle used in secure voice transmission: decentralization . In the early 1970s, the RAND Corporation developed a technology (later called “packet switching”) that allowed users to send secure voice messages. In contrast to a system known as the hub-and-spoke model, where the telephone operator (the “hub”) would patch two people (the “spokes”) through directly, this new system allowed for a voice message to be sent through an entire network, or web, of carrier lines, without the need to travel through a central hub, allowing for many different possible paths to the destination.

During the Cold War, the U.S. military was concerned about a nuclear attack destroying the hub in its hub-and-spoke model; with this new web-like model, a secure voice transmission would be more likely to endure a large-scale attack. A web of data pathways would still be able to transmit secure voice “packets,” even if a few of the nodes—places where the web of connections intersected—were destroyed. Only through the destruction of all the nodes in the web could the data traveling along it be completely wiped out—an unlikely event in the case of a highly decentralized network.

This decentralized network could only function through common communication protocols. Just as we use certain protocols when communicating over a telephone—“hello,” “goodbye,” and “hold on for a minute” are three examples—any sort of machine-to-machine communication must also use protocols. These protocols constitute a shared language enabling computers to understand each other clearly and easily.

The Building Blocks of the Internet

In 1973, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) began research on protocols to allow computers to communicate over a distributed network . This work paralleled work done by the RAND Corporation, particularly in the realm of a web-based network model of communication. Instead of using electronic signals to send an unending stream of ones and zeros over a line (the equivalent of a direct voice connection), DARPA used this new packet-switching technology to send small bundles of data. This way, a message that would have been an unbroken stream of binary data—extremely vulnerable to errors and corruption—could be packaged as only a few hundred numbers.

Figure 11.2

Centralized versus distributed communication networks

Imagine a telephone conversation in which any static in the signal would make the message incomprehensible. Whereas humans can infer meaning from “Meet me [static] the restaurant at 8:30” (we replace the static with the word at ), computers do not necessarily have that logical linguistic capability. To a computer, this constant stream of data is incomplete—or “corrupted,” in technological terminology—and confusing. Considering the susceptibility of electronic communication to noise or other forms of disruption, it would seem like computer-to-computer transmission would be nearly impossible.

However, the packets in this packet-switching technology have something that allows the receiving computer to make sure the packet has arrived uncorrupted. Because of this new technology and the shared protocols that made computer-to-computer transmission possible, a single large message could be broken into many pieces and sent through an entire web of connections, speeding up transmission and making that transmission more secure.

One of the necessary parts of a network is a host. A host is a physical node that is directly connected to the Internet and “directs traffic” by routing packets of data to and from other computers connected to it. In a normal network, a specific computer is usually not directly connected to the Internet; it is connected through a host. A host in this case is identified by an Internet protocol, or IP, address (a concept that is explained in greater detail later). Each unique IP address refers to a single location on the global Internet, but that IP address can serve as a gateway for many different computers. For example, a college campus may have one global IP address for all of its students’ computers, and each student’s computer might then have its own local IP address on the school’s network. This nested structure allows billions of different global hosts, each with any number of computers connected within their internal networks. Think of a campus postal system: All students share the same global address (1000 College Drive, Anywhere, VT 08759, for example), but they each have an internal mailbox within that system.

The early Internet was called ARPANET, after the U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency (which added “Defense” to its name and became DARPA in 1973), and consisted of just four hosts: UCLA, Stanford, UC Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah. Now there are over half a million hosts, and each of those hosts likely serves thousands of people (Central Intelligence Agency). Each host uses protocols to connect to an ever-growing network of computers. Because of this, the Internet does not exist in any one place in particular; rather, it is the name we give to the huge network of interconnected computers that collectively form the entity that we think of as the Internet. The Internet is not a physical structure; it is the protocols that make this communication possible.

Figure 11.3

A TCP gateway is like a post office because of the way that it directs information to the correct location.

One of the other core components of the Internet is the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) gateway. Proposed in a 1974 paper, the TCP gateway acts “like a postal service (Cerf, et. al., 1974).” Without knowing a specific physical address, any computer on the network can ask for the owner of any IP address, and the TCP gateway will consult its directory of IP address listings to determine exactly which computer the requester is trying to contact. The development of this technology was an essential building block in the interlinking of networks, as computers could now communicate with each other without knowing the specific address of a recipient; the TCP gateway would figure it all out. In addition, the TCP gateway checks for errors and ensures that data reaches its destination uncorrupted. Today, this combination of TCP gateways and IP addresses is called TCP/IP and is essentially a worldwide phone book for every host on the Internet.

You’ve Got Mail: The Beginnings of the Electronic Mailbox

E-mail has, in one sense or another, been around for quite a while. Originally, electronic messages were recorded within a single mainframe computer system. Each person working on the computer would have a personal folder, so sending that person a message required nothing more than creating a new document in that person’s folder. It was just like leaving a note on someone’s desk (Peter, 2004), so that the person would see it when he or she logged onto the computer.

However, once networks began to develop, things became slightly more complicated. Computer programmer Ray Tomlinson is credited with inventing the naming system we have today, using the @ symbol to denote the server (or host, from the previous section). In other words, [email protected] tells the host “gmail.com” (Google’s e-mail server) to drop the message into the folder belonging to “name.” Tomlinson is credited with writing the first network e-mail using his program SNDMSG in 1971. This invention of a simple standard for e-mail is often cited as one of the most important factors in the rapid spread of the Internet, and is still one of the most widely used Internet services.

The use of e-mail grew in large part because of later commercial developments, especially America Online, that made connecting to e-mail much easier than it had been at its inception. Internet service providers (ISPs) packaged e-mail accounts with Internet access, and almost all web browsers (such as Netscape, discussed later in the section) included a form of e-mail service. In addition to the ISPs, e-mail services like Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail provided free e-mail addresses paid for by small text ads at the bottom of every e-mail message sent. These free “webmail” services soon expanded to comprise a large part of the e-mail services that are available today. Far from the original maximum inbox sizes of a few megabytes, today’s e-mail services, like Google’s Gmail service, generally provide gigabytes of free storage space.

E-mail has revolutionized written communication. The speed and relatively inexpensive nature of e-mail makes it a prime competitor of postal services—including FedEx and UPS—that pride themselves on speed. Communicating via e-mail with someone on the other end of the world is just as quick and inexpensive as communicating with a next-door neighbor. However, the growth of Internet shopping and online companies such as Amazon.com has in many ways made the postal service and shipping companies more prominent—not necessarily for communication, but for delivery and remote business operations.

Hypertext: Web 1.0

In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, a graduate of Oxford University and software engineer at CERN (the European particle physics laboratory), had the idea of using a new kind of protocol to share documents and information throughout the local CERN network. Instead of transferring regular text-based documents, he created a new language called hypertext markup language (HTML). Hypertext was a new word for text that goes beyond the boundaries of a single document. Hypertext can include links to other documents (hyperlinks), text-style formatting, images, and a wide variety of other components. The basic idea is that documents can be constructed out of a variety of links and can be viewed just as if they are on the user’s computer.

This new language required a new communication protocol so that computers could interpret it, and Berners-Lee decided on the name hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP). Through HTTP, hypertext documents can be sent from computer to computer and can then be interpreted by a browser, which turns the HTML files into readable web pages. The browser that Berners-Lee created, called World Wide Web, was a combination browser-editor, allowing users to view other HTML documents and create their own (Berners-Lee, 2009).

Figure 11.4

Tim Berners-Lee’s first web browser was also a web page editor.

Modern browsers, like Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, only allow for the viewing of web pages; other increasingly complicated tools are now marketed for creating web pages, although even the most complicated page can be written entirely from a program like Windows Notepad. The reason web pages can be created with the simplest tools is the adoption of certain protocols by the most common browsers. Because Internet Explorer, Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, and other browsers all interpret the same code in more or less the same way, creating web pages is as simple as learning how to speak the language of these browsers.

In 1991, the same year that Berners-Lee created his web browser, the Internet connection service Q-Link was renamed America Online, or AOL for short. This service would eventually grow to employ over 20,000 people, on the basis of making Internet access available (and, critically, simple) for anyone with a telephone line. Although the web in 1991 was not what it is today, AOL’s software allowed its users to create communities based on just about any subject, and it only required a dial-up modem—a device that connects any computer to the Internet via a telephone line—and the telephone line itself.

In addition, AOL incorporated two technologies—chat rooms and Instant Messenger—into a single program (along with a web browser). Chat rooms allowed many users to type live messages to a “room” full of people, while Instant Messenger allowed two users to communicate privately via text-based messages. The most important aspect of AOL was its encapsulation of all these once-disparate programs into a single user-friendly bundle. Although AOL was later disparaged for customer service issues like its users’ inability to deactivate their service, its role in bringing the Internet to mainstream users was instrumental (Zeller Jr., 2005).

In contrast to AOL’s proprietary services, the World Wide Web had to be viewed through a standalone web browser. The first of these browsers to make its mark was the program Mosaic, released by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois. Mosaic was offered for free and grew very quickly in popularity due to features that now seem integral to the web. Things like bookmarks, which allow users to save the location of particular pages without having to remember them, and images, now an integral part of the web, were all inventions that made the web more usable for many people (National Center for Supercomputing Appliances).

Although the web browser Mosaic has not been updated since 1997, developers who worked on it went on to create Netscape Navigator, an extremely popular browser during the 1990s. AOL later bought the Netscape company, and the Navigator browser was discontinued in 2008, largely because Netscape Navigator had lost the market to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser, which came preloaded on Microsoft’s ubiquitous Windows operating system. However, Netscape had long been converting its Navigator software into an open-source program called Mozilla Firefox, which is now the second-most-used web browser on the Internet (detailed in Table 11.1 “Browser Market Share (as of February 2010)” ) (NetMarketshare). Firefox represents about a quarter of the market—not bad, considering its lack of advertising and Microsoft’s natural advantage of packaging Internet Explorer with the majority of personal computers.

Table 11.1 Browser Market Share (as of February 2010)

For Sale: The Web

As web browsers became more available as a less-moderated alternative to AOL’s proprietary service, the web became something like a free-for-all of startup companies. The web of this period, often referred to as Web 1.0, featured many specialty sites that used the Internet’s ability for global, instantaneous communication to create a new type of business. Another name for this free-for-all of the 1990s is the “dot-com boom.” During the boom, it seemed as if almost anyone could build a website and sell it for millions of dollars. However, the “dot-com crash” that occurred later that decade seemed to say otherwise. Quite a few of these Internet startup companies went bankrupt, taking their shareholders down with them. Alan Greenspan, then the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, called this phenomenon “irrational exuberance (Greenspan, 1996),” in large part because investors did not necessarily know how to analyze these particular business plans, and companies that had never turned a profit could be sold for millions. The new business models of the Internet may have done well in the stock market, but they were not necessarily sustainable. In many ways, investors collectively failed to analyze the business prospects of these companies, and once they realized their mistakes (and the companies went bankrupt), much of the recent market growth evaporated. The invention of new technologies can bring with it the belief that old business tenets no longer apply, but this dangerous belief—the “irrational exuberance” Greenspan spoke of—is not necessarily conducive to long-term growth.

Some lucky dot-com businesses formed during the boom survived the crash and are still around today. For example, eBay, with its online auctions, turned what seemed like a dangerous practice (sending money to a stranger you met over the Internet) into a daily occurrence. A less-fortunate company, eToys.com , got off to a promising start—its stock quadrupled on the day it went public in 1999—but then filed for Chapter 11 “The Internet and Social Media” bankruptcy in 2001 (Barnes, 2001).

One of these startups, theGlobe.com , provided one of the earliest social networking services that exploded in popularity. When theGlobe.com went public, its stock shot from a target price of $9 to a close of $63.50 a share (Kawamoto, 1998). The site itself was started in 1995, building its business on advertising. As skepticism about the dot-com boom grew and advertisers became increasingly skittish about the value of online ads, theGlobe.com ceased to be profitable and shut its doors as a social networking site (The Globe, 2009). Although advertising is pervasive on the Internet today, the current model—largely based on the highly targeted Google AdSense service—did not come around until much later. In the earlier dot-com years, the same ad might be shown on thousands of different web pages, whereas now advertising is often specifically targeted to the content of an individual page.

However, that did not spell the end of social networking on the Internet. Social networking had been going on since at least the invention of Usenet in 1979 (detailed later in the chapter), but the recurring problem was always the same: profitability. This model of free access to user-generated content departed from almost anything previously seen in media, and revenue streams would have to be just as radical.

The Early Days of Social Media

The shared, generalized protocols of the Internet have allowed it to be easily adapted and extended into many different facets of our lives. The Internet shapes everything, from our day-to-day routine—the ability to read newspapers from around the world, for example—to the way research and collaboration are conducted. There are three important aspects of communication that the Internet has changed, and these have instigated profound changes in the way we connect with one another socially: the speed of information, the volume of information, and the “democratization” of publishing, or the ability of anyone to publish ideas on the web.

One of the Internet’s largest and most revolutionary changes has come about through social networking. Because of Twitter, we can now see what all our friends are doing in real time; because of blogs, we can consider the opinions of complete strangers who may never write in traditional print; and because of Facebook, we can find people we haven’t talked to for decades, all without making a single awkward telephone call.

Recent years have seen an explosion of new content and services; although the phrase “social media” now seems to be synonymous with websites like Facebook and Twitter, it is worthwhile to consider all the ways a social media platform affects the Internet experience.

How Did We Get Here? The Late 1970s, Early 1980s, and Usenet

Almost as soon as TCP stitched the various networks together, a former DARPA scientist named Larry Roberts founded the company Telnet, the first commercial packet-switching company. Two years later, in 1977, the invention of the dial-up modem (in combination with the wider availability of personal computers like the Apple II) made it possible for anyone around the world to access the Internet. With availability extended beyond purely academic and military circles, the Internet quickly became a staple for computer hobbyists.

One of the consequences of the spread of the Internet to hobbyists was the founding of Usenet. In 1979, University of North Carolina graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis connected three computers in a small network and used a series of programming scripts to post and receive messages. In a very short span of time, this system spread all over the burgeoning Internet. Much like an electronic version of community bulletin boards, anyone with a computer could post a topic or reply on Usenet.

The group was fundamentally and explicitly anarchic, as outlined by the posting “What is Usenet?” This document says, “Usenet is not a democracy…there is no person or group in charge of Usenet …Usenet cannot be a democracy, autocracy, or any other kind of ‘-acy (Moraes, et. al., 1998).’” Usenet was not used only for socializing, however, but also for collaboration. In some ways, the service allowed a new kind of collaboration that seemed like the start of a revolution: “I was able to join rec.kites and collectively people in Australia and New Zealand helped me solve a problem and get a circular two-line kite to fly,” one user told the United Kingdom’s Guardian (Jeffery, et. al., 2009).

GeoCities: Yahoo! Pioneers

Fast-forward to 1995: The president and founder of Beverly Hills Internet, David Bohnett, announces that the name of his company is now “GeoCities.” GeoCities built its business by allowing users (“homesteaders”) to create web pages in “communities” for free, with the stipulation that the company placed a small advertising banner at the top of each page. Anyone could register a GeoCities site and subsequently build a web page about a topic. Almost all of the community names, like Broadway (live theater) and Athens (philosophy and education), were centered on specific topics (Archive, 1996).

This idea of centering communities on specific topics may have come from Usenet. In Usenet, the domain alt.rec.kites refers to a specific topic (kites) within a category (recreation) within a larger community (alternative topics). This hierarchical model allowed users to organize themselves across the vastness of the Internet, even on a large site like GeoCities. The difference with GeoCities was that it allowed users to do much more than post only text (the limitation of Usenet), while constraining them to a relatively small pool of resources. Although each GeoCities user had only a few megabytes of web space, standardized pictures—like mailbox icons and back buttons—were hosted on GeoCities’s main server. GeoCities was such a large part of the Internet, and these standard icons were so ubiquitous, that they have now become a veritable part of the Internet’s cultural history. The Web Elements category of the site Internet Archaeology is a good example of how pervasive GeoCities graphics became (Internet Archaeology, 2010).

GeoCities built its business on a freemium model, where basic services are free but subscribers pay extra for things like commercial pages or shopping carts. Other Internet businesses, like Skype and Flickr, use the same model to keep a vast user base while still profiting from frequent users. Since loss of online advertising revenue was seen as one of the main causes of the dot-com crash, many current web startups are turning toward this freemium model to diversify their income streams (Miller, 2009).

GeoCities’s model was so successful that the company Yahoo! bought it for $3.6 billion at its peak in 1999. At the time, GeoCities was the third-most-visited site on the web (behind Yahoo! and AOL), so it seemed like a sure bet. A decade later, on October 26, 2009, Yahoo! closed GeoCities for good in every country except Japan.

Diversification of revenue has become one of the most crucial elements of Internet businesses; from The Wall Street Journal online to YouTube, almost every website is now looking for multiple income streams to support its services.

Key Takeaways

The two primary characteristics of the original Internet were decentralization and free, open protocols that anyone could use. As a result of its decentralized “web” model of organization, the Internet can store data in many different places at once. This makes it very useful for backing up data and very difficult to destroy data that might be unwanted. Protocols play an important role in this, because they allow some degree of control to exist without a central command structure.
Two of the most important technological developments were the personal computer (such as the Apple II) and the dial-up modem, which allowed anyone with a phone line to access the developing Internet. America Online also played an important role, making it very easy for practically anyone with a computer to use the Internet. Another development, the web browser, allowed for access to and creation of web pages all over the Internet.
With the advent of the web browser, it seemed as if anyone could make a website that people wanted to use. The problem was that these sites were driven largely by venture capital and grossly inflated initial public offerings of their stock. After failing to secure any real revenue stream, their stock plummeted, the market crashed, and many of these companies went out of business. In later years, companies tried to diversify their investments, particularly by using a “freemium” model of revenue, in which a company would both sell premium services and advertise, while offering a free pared-down service to casual users.

Websites have many different ways of paying for themselves, and this can say a lot about both the site and its audience. The business models of today’s websites may also directly reflect the lessons learned during the early days of the Internet. Start this exercise by reviewing a list of common ways that websites pay for themselves, how they arrived at these methods, and what it might say about them:

Advertising: The site probably has many casual viewers and may not necessarily be well established. If there are targeted ads (such as ads directed toward stay-at-home parents with children), then it is possible the site is successful with a small audience.
Subscription option: The site may be a news site that prides itself on accuracy of information or lack of bias, whose regular readers are willing to pay a premium for the guarantee of quality material. Alternately, the site may cater to a small demographic of Internet users by providing them with exclusive, subscription-only content.
Selling services: Online services, such as file hosting, or offline services and products are probably the clearest way to determine a site’s revenue stream. However, these commercial sites often are not prized for their unbiased information, and their bias can greatly affect the content on the site.

Choose a website that you visit often, and list which of these revenue streams the site might have. How might this affect the content on the site? Is there a visible effect, or does the site try to hide it? Consider how events during the early history of the Internet may have affected the way the site operates now. Write down a revenue stream that the site does not currently have and how the site designers might implement such a revenue stream.

Archive, While GeoCities is no longer in business, the Internet Archive maintains the site at http://www.archive.org/web/geocities.php . Information taken from December 21, 1996.

Barnes, Cecily. “eToys files for Chapter 11,” CNET , March 7, 2001, http://news.cnet.com/2100-1017-253706.html .

Berners-Lee, Tim. “The WorldWideWeb Browser,” 2009, https://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/WorldWideWeb .

Central Intelligence Agency, “Country Comparison: Internet Hosts,” World Factbook , https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2184rank.html .

Cerf, Vincton, Yogen Dalal, and Carl Sunshine, “Specification of Internet Transmission Control Program,” December 1974, http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc675 .

Greenspan, Alan. “The Challenge of Central Banking in a Democratic Society, ” (lecture, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, DC, December 5, 1996), http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/1996/19961205.htm .

Internet Archaeology, 2010, http://www.internetarchaeology.org/swebelements.htm .

Jeffery, Simon and others, “A People’s History of the Internet: From Arpanet in 1969 to Today,” Guardian (London), October 23, 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/interactive/2009/oct/23/internet-arpanet .

Kawamoto, Dawn. “ TheGlobe.com ’s IPO one for the books,” CNET , November 13, 1998, http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-217913.html .

Miller, Claire Cain. “Ad Revenue on the Web? No Sure Bet,” New York Times , May 24, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/25/technology/start-ups/25startup.html .

Moraes, Mark, Chip Salzenberg, and Gene Spafford, “What is Usenet?” December 28, 1999, http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/what-is/part1/ .

National Center for Supercomputing Appliances, “About NCSA Mosaic,” 2010, http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/Projects/mosaic.html .

NetMarketShare, “Browser Market Share,” http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=0&qpcal=1&qptimeframe=M&qpsp=132 .

Peter, Ian. “The History of Email,” The Internet History Project, 2004, http://www.nethistory.info/History%20of%20the%20Internet/email.html .

The Globe, theglobe.com, “About Us,” 2009, http://www.theglobe.com/ .

Zeller, Jr., Tom. “Canceling AOL? Just Offer Your Firstborn,” New York Times , August 29, 2005, all http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/29/technology/29link.html .

Understanding Media and Culture Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Traditional Media vs. New Media

Need to write an old media vs. new media essay? Find here an A+ example! It studies the evolution of traditional to new media, explains how Internet has replaced newspapers, and gives examples.

Introduction

Old vs. New Media

The Evolution of Traditional to New Media

Lots of people are now talking about new media as opposed to old or traditional media. However, there is still some uncertainty as regards the distinction between new and old media. Flew (2008) notes that the idea of ‘newness’ is rather subjective and relative as television and the Internet have become accessible almost simultaneously in such countries as India or China.

Other researchers suggest a particular distinction between new and old media based on the use of the Internet and digital technology (Salman et al., 2011). Noteworthy, researchers agree that the distinction between the two types of media is less important than the convergence of these types (Collins, 2013).

It is possible to state that the three standpoints are correct to a certain extent and it is possible to combine them. Thus, the distinction between old and new media is a bit blurred but still meaningful even though the two types of media are likely to converge into the third type.

Despite close connection between the two types of media, it is possible to draw the distinction between them. Logan (2010, p. 4) claims that new media “incorporate two-way communication” and are associated with computing (e.g. the Internet, social networks), while old media do not require computing (radio, print newspapers, TV). This standpoint can be easily illustrated.

Thus, newspapers and television are rather one-way sources of information. Viewers do not often participate in the creation of the programs. Admittedly, there are call-ins but the amount of participation is still irrelevant. When it comes to newspapers, they are not created by the readers.

Each piece of news is told by a journalist. Readers can only write letters or call the newspaper and it is the editor who decides whether to add the commentary to the next issue or not. However, it is necessary to note that at the era of newspapers and television there was no need in such two-way channels. People strived for news and they simply wanted to be aware of the latest events in the world.

Remarkably, people of the twenty-first century seek for networking and they want to feel connected. Boyd and Ellison (2008) stress that networking has become very popular as people feel certain empowerment. Thus, online resources are characterized by the immediate feedback (Ryan, 2010). Users post their commentaries and express their opinions on a variety of issues (Newman, 2011).

Moreover, people affect media’s agendas, so-to-speak. Jenkins (2006) mentions the story of a teenager who unintentionally caused the start of anti-American demonstrations and almost caused legal actions against himself. Internet users also feel their own relevance with the help of blogging. Keen (2010) emphasizes negative effects of such empowerment.

The researcher argues that blogging along with various applications available online makes people distracted from some really important things. Keen (2010, p. 55) articulates the idea that ‘democratized’ media only leads to the future where “everyone is an author, while there is no longer any audience”.

The present distinction is based on the degree of collaboration between producers of content and consumers. Van Dijk (2006) introduces a structural component of the distinction between new media and old media stating that the former are structurally different (i.e. two-way) from the latter (i.e. one-way).

It is also possible to differentiate between the old and new media focusing on their ‘popularity’. As far as old media are concerned, they are seen as somewhat outdated and they are declining. For instance, researchers note that there is certain decrease in newspapers circulations in many countries (Cervenka, 2005). Younger generations prefer searching the net to reading print newspapers.

Television is also losing points steadily. At the same time, the Internet and especially social networks are becoming more and more popular. Popularity of the Internet is due to its accessibility and multi-functionalism (O’Reilly, 2005). Internet users are attracted by the variety of options offered.

Thus, users can communicate, express opinions, share files, create certain communities, find information, etc. It is possible to state that this distinction is also relevant. Hence, it is possible to note that the distinction between old and new media is based on two dimensions, popularity and structure.

Remarkably, some researchers claim that there is a distinction based on the form. Chun (2005) notes that new media require computing and digital technology (unlike old media). Nevertheless, such media as online newspapers and digital TV are becoming increasingly popular. Some call these new media, but it is somewhat inaccurate. It is more appropriate to talk about the third type of media or the convergence of the two types.

Thus, Skoler (2009) states that the two types of media can facilitate each other. For instance, the author argues that social media can help develop such old media as newspapers. The researcher notes that people can continue telling stories and reporting about things they see, but it is journalists’ job to process the information and present the most relevant news only (Skoler, 2009).

This convergence of social networks and newspapers can be beneficial for both as the former get the air of confidence and the latter have access to almost unlimited sources of information.

French (2011) also claims that convergence of different types of media is beneficial for the development of the very concept of media. The researcher stresses that the so-called old media are now becoming digitalized. People have online newspapers and digital TV. They also keep using social networks and other applications. This helps people remain up-to-date and connected.

Thus, it is possible to state that the distinction between old and new media is becoming totally blurred as the third type of media occurs. It is possible to call it global, digital, collaborative and old and new media can be a characteristic of the twentieth century.

To sum up, it is possible to note that the distinction between old and new media can be based on several features. The most relevant distinction is based on the structural component and popularity. Thus, new media are characterized by computing and connectedness while old media do not possess these features.

However, it is also necessary to note that even this distinction is becoming somewhat blurred due to the changes taking place in the society of the twenty-first century.

Newspapers and TV are now digitalized and these media start being more collaborative (i.e. customers are getting involved in the process of creation of the products). This collaboration is beneficial for the media as well as the development of the society. People are now ready to collaborate and interact, which is crucial for the globalized world of the twenty-first century.

Reference List

Boyd, D., & Ellison, N. (2008). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 13 (1), 210-230.

Cervenka, A. (2005). Roles of traditional publications and new media. Innovation Journalism, 2 (4), 121-230.

Chun, W. H. K. (2005). Did somebody say new media? In W.H.K. Chun & T. Keenan (Eds.), New media, old media: A history and theory reader (pp. 1-12). New York: Routledge.

Collins, R. (2013). New bad things . Huffington Post . Web.

Flew, T. (2008). Introduction to new media. In T. Flew (Ed.), New media: An introduction (pp. 1-20). South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

French, K. (2011). Emerging convergence. The Hub . Web.

Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide . New York: New York University Press.

Keen, A. (2010). Why we must resist the temptation of web 2.0. In B. Szoka & A. Marcus (Eds.), The next digital decade: Essays on the future of the internet (pp. 51-56). Washington: Techfreedom.

Logan, R. K. (2010). Understanding new media: Extending Marshall McLuhan . New York: Peter Lang.

Newman, N. (2011). Mainstream media and the distribution of news in the age of social discovery. Reuters Institute . Web.

O’Reilly, T. (2005). What is Web 2.0 . Web.

Ryan, J. (2010). The web! In J. Ryan (Ed.), A history of the internet and the digital future (pp.105-119). London: Reaktion.

Salman, A., Ibrahim, F., Abdullah, M.Y.H., Mustaffa, N., & Mahbob, M.H. (2011). The impact of new media on traditional mainstream mass media. The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 16 (3), 1-11.

Skoler, M. (2009). Why the news media became irrelevant: And how social media can help. Nieman Reports . Web.

Van Dijk, J. (2006). The network society: Social aspects of new media . London: Sage.

Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2019, July 4). Traditional Media vs. New Media. https://ivypanda.com/essays/old-media-and-new-media/

"Traditional Media vs. New Media." IvyPanda , 4 July 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/old-media-and-new-media/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'Traditional Media vs. New Media'. 4 July.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Traditional Media vs. New Media." July 4, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/old-media-and-new-media/.

1. IvyPanda . "Traditional Media vs. New Media." July 4, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/old-media-and-new-media/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Traditional Media vs. New Media." July 4, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/old-media-and-new-media/.

Convergence of World Economies
Convergence of Public and Private Security
Consequences of Migration in the Twenty-First Century
Propaganda Movement in Mass Media
Fashion Magazines: Print Media Isn't Dead and Here's Why
The Comparison Between the Two Different International Editions of Vogue Magazine
Media in the society
The Global Media Is All About Money and Profit Making

Bachelor’s Degrees
Master’s Degrees
Doctorate Degrees
Certificate Programs
Nursing Degrees
Cybersecurity
Human Services
Science & Mathematics
Communication
Liberal Arts
Social Sciences
Computer Science
Admissions Overview
Tuition and Financial Aid
Incoming Freshman and Graduate Students
Transfer Students
Military Students
International Students
Early Access Program
About Maryville
Our Faculty
Our Approach
Our History
Accreditation
Tales of the Brave
Student Support Overview
Online Learning Tools
Infographics

Home / Blog

The Evolution of Social Media: How Did It Begin, and Where Could It Go Next?

May 28, 2020

Table of Contents

A Brief History of Social Media ○ The Launch of Social Sites

Social Media: End Users and Businesses

How marketing pros utilize social media.

What’s Next For Social Media

The evolution of social media has been fueled by the human impulse to communicate and by advances in digital technology. It is a story about establishing and nurturing personal connections at scale.

According to Merriam-Webster , social media is defined as “forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos).” The 2019 Pew Research Center report on social media use in the United States showed that 72% of American adults use some form of social media. In 2005, the year after Facebook went live, that number was 5%.

Learn visual thinking and design theory from expert instructors

The online Bachelor of Fine Arts in Digital Media from Maryville University will equip you with the skills to create unique digital experiences and multimedia content. No SAT or ACT scores required.

Engage in a range of relevant course topics, from digital illustration to motion graphics.
Create a dynamic portfolio with professional faculty feedback.

What follows is an examination of the origins of social media, its relatively rapid growth as a sociological and commercial force, and the change it has brought to the marketing world.

A Brief History of Social Media

In less than a generation, social media has evolved from direct electronic information exchange, to virtual gathering place, to retail platform, to vital 21st-century marketing tool.

How did it begin? How has social media affected the lives of billions of people? How have businesses adapted to the digital consumer lifestyle? How do marketing professionals use social media? It’s all part of the story of social media’s ongoing evolution.

Pre-internet Roots

In a sense, social media began on May 24, 1844, with a series of electronic dots and dashes tapped out by hand on a telegraph machine.

The first electronic message from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., proved Samuel Morse understood the historic ramifications of his scientific achievement: “What hath God wrought?” he wrote.

A recent article in The Washington Post , “ Before Twitter and Facebook, There Was Morse Code: Remembering Social Media’s True Inventor ,” details the history and relevance of Morse code, complete with early versions of today’s “OMG” and “LOL.”

While the roots of digital communication run deep, most contemporary accounts of the modern origins of today’s internet and social media point to the emergence in 1969 of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network — the ARPANET.

This early digital network, created by the United States Department of Defense, allowed scientists at four interconnected universities to share software, hardware, and other data.

In 1987, the direct precursor to today’s internet came into being when the National Science Foundation launched a more robust, nationwide digital network known as the NSFNET . A decade later, in 1997, the first true social media platform was launched.

The Launch of Social Sites

In the 1980s and ’90s, according to “ The History of Social Networking ” on the technology news site Digital Trends, the internet’s growth enabled the introduction of online communication services such as CompuServe, America Online, and Prodigy. They introduced users to digital communication through email, bulletin board messaging, and real-time online chatting.

This gave rise to the earliest social media networks, beginning with the short-lived Six Degrees profile uploading service in 1997.

This service was followed in 2001 by Friendster. These rudimentary platforms attracted millions of users and enabled email address registration and basic online networking.

Weblogs, or blogs, another early form of digital social communication, began to gain popularity with the 1999 launch of the LiveJournal publishing site. This coincided with the launch of the Blogger publishing platform by the tech company Pyra Labs, which was purchased by Google in 2003 .

In 2002, LinkedIn was founded as a networking site for career-minded professionals. By 2020, it had grown to more than 675 million users worldwide. It remains the social media site of choice for job seekers as well as human resources managers searching for qualified candidates.

Two other major forays into social media collapsed after a burst of initial success. In 2003, Myspace launched. By 2006, it was the most visited website on the planet, spurred by users’ ability to share new music directly on their profile pages.

By 2008, it was eclipsed by Facebook. In 2011, Myspace was purchased by musician Justin Timberlake for $35 million, but it has since become a social media afterthought .

Google’s attempt to elbow its way into the social media landscape, Google+ , launched in 2012. A rocky existence came to an end in 2018, after the private information of nearly 500,000 Google+ users was compromised by a data security breach.

Modern Social Media Outlets

Today’s social media landscape is populated by a suite of services that jockey for the attention of more than 5 billion mobile device users worldwide . Here is an overview of the most prominent social media networks of 2020:

Launched in 2004 by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, it has nearly 1.7 billion users — including 69% of U.S. adults, according to Pew Research .

HubSpot: Facebook Marketing

Launched in 2005 by Massachusetts 20-somethings Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian as a news-sharing platform, its 300 million users have transformed Reddit into a combination news aggregation/social commentary site. Its popularity is based on the ability to “up-vote” and “down-vote” user posts.

Social Media Examiner: How to Market on Reddit: A Guide for Businesses

Founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and others as a microblogging site, by 2020, 22% of U.S. adults were Twitter users, according to Pew Research .

Hootsuite: Twitter Marketing: The Complete Guide for Business

Founded in 2010 by Stanford graduate Kevin Systrom as a photo-sharing site and purchased by Facebook in 2012, Instagram has more than 1 billion users worldwide.

HubSpot: Instagram Marketing: The Ultimate Guide

Founded in 2010 by iPhone app developer Ben Silbermann as a visual “pin board,” Pinterest became a publicly traded company in 2019 and has more than 335 million active monthly users.

Sprout Social: Your 5-Step Pinterest Marketing Guide

Founded in 2011 by a trio of Stanford students — Evan Spiegel, Reggie Brown, and Bobby Murphy — this video-sharing service introduced the concept of “stories,” or serialized short videos, and “filters,” run for informative digital effects, often based on location.

Hootsuite: Snapchat for Business

Founded in 2016 by Chinese tech company ByteDance, this short-form video-sharing site was merged with the U.S.-based mobile app Musical.ly in 2018 and became popular with American teens and young adults. As of early 2020, it had more than 800 million users worldwide.

Business Insider: TikTok Marketing Trends & Predictions for 2020

What began as a desktop or laptop experience shifted to mobile phones and tablets as cellular service expanded; the capabilities of cellular phones expanded, turning them into “smartphones”; and high-speed wireless internet became more readily available in homes, businesses, and public spaces.

With the advent of social media apps that could run on smartphones, end users could take their communities with them wherever they went.

Businesses took advantage of this new consumer mobility by serving their customers new, simpler methods of interacting — and new ways of buying goods and services.

The End-User Experience

At first, social media existed to help end users connect digitally with friends, colleagues, family members, and like-minded individuals they might never have met in person. Desktop access to bulletin board services such as CompuServe and Prodigy made it easier to grow free online communities without ever leaving the house.

The invention of the smartphone liberated social media from the desktop and laptop computer. Apple’s first iPhone, launched by Steve Jobs in 2007, helped shift the focus of online community building to mobile. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, and other social media services thrived in the mobile app environment.

Technological improvements — specifically, powerful in-phone cameras — shifted the focus of mobile apps to video and images. In addition to written messages, end users could now broadcast in real time.

Instagram, in particular, became the app of choice for social media users interested in travel, entertainment, fashion, and other visually oriented topics.

The Business Experience

As social media companies grew their user bases into the hundreds of millions, the business applications of Facebook, Twitter, and other social platforms began to take shape. Social media companies had access to some of the richest trackable user data ever conceived.

A recent article on IAS Insider, “ The Evolution of Social Media Advertising ,” sums it up: “Users don’t just log in and browse, they tell the platforms their name, and where they live, what they like and who they know, painting the most vivid picture currently possible for marketers looking to target specific consumers.”

Facebook began to place ads on its platform as early as 2006. Twitter enabled ads in 2010. LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, and TikTok all have attempted to monetize their services through various forms of sponsored advertising.

In addition to placing ads on social media platforms, companies discovered the potential utility of cultivating an active, engaged social media presence. Whereas social media advertising must be paid for, the act of creating and sharing informative or entertaining content on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other platforms is an attempt by brands to grow an audience organically, in other words, without paying for it directly.

According to HubSpot’s “ Social Media Marketing: The Ultimate Guide ,” companies use organic social media marketing to:

Increase brand awareness
Generate leads and increase conversions
Develop and nurture relationships with customers
Learn from competitors

The combination of advertising, or paid social media marketing, and organic social media outreach evolved into the digital marketing specialty known as social media marketing.

Sprout Social: How to Build Your Social Media Marketing Strategy for 2020
Forbes: How Social Media Can Move Your Business Forward
Social Media Examiner: The Guide for Social Media Marketing for Businesses

As the ability to reach consumers expanded thanks to social media, marketing professionals quickly adapted. Social media’s evolution provided measurement tools that gave marketing professionals unprecedented access to valuable, actionable data about consumers’ demographics, buying habits, and more.

With marketers no longer limited to traditional forms of media — TV, radio, print, mail, billboards, magazines, etc. — the social media marketing industry was born.

increases in digital advertising in the US

Taking Advantage of Social Media’s Popularity

The most efficient way to take advantage of social media’s popularity is to leverage existing audiences. To that end, digital marketers engage social media “influencers” to share messaging and product offers with their followers.

According to an article on Sprout Social’s website, “ What Is Influencer Marketing: How to Develop Your Strategy ,” influencer marketing is defined as “a type of social media marketing that uses endorsements and product mentions from influencers — individuals who have a dedicated social following and are viewed as experts within their niche.”

These social media influencers spend time building trust with their audiences. With more than 3.2 billion social media users worldwide, finding influencers whose audiences fall into the company’s niche of consumers helps cut through the noise by targeting specific potential buyers.

While influencers provide companies a layer of built-in consumer trust, social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn provide in-depth analytics that allow digital marketers to target specific demographic groups with ads. This can be useful for building brand awareness among potential long-term customers, as well as for generating leads for specific products or services.

Influencer Marketing Hub: What is an Influencer?
Social Media Today: 4 Influencer Marketing Trends That Will Dominate in 2020
Influencer Marketing Hub: The State of Influencer Marketing 2020: Benchmark Report

The Importance of Engagement and Integration

Social media engagement consists of the various ways users respond to a post. This can include comments, follows, shares (retweets on Twitter), and clicks on a shared link. All of these actions are measurable thanks to analytics provided by the social media platforms (Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, LinkedIn Page Analytics, etc.).

Each of these engagements presents an opportunity for marketers to influence a customer or group of customers. For example, a company that monitors its Twitter feed in real time — either through an automated service or in person — is positioned to respond quickly to a customer’s request or comment.

In addition, data that reveals users’ habits over time can be integrated into a long-term social media strategy. For example, Facebook Insights shows when users are most active on the platform. This information can be used to determine when is the best time to post new content, giving it a better chance to be seen.

Another way marketers use social media is to monitor cultural trends and, if applicable, incorporate brand-specific concepts that build on those trends to entice customers to engage with the company’s content.

Personifying the Company

Another Sprout Social article, “ 5 Actionable Strategies for Social Media Branding ,” provides guidelines for how social media can be used to develop a company’s public “voice.” The bottom line when it comes to social media branding is authenticity. Today’s savvy digital consumers expect a robust and “real” personality from brands. Sprout Social’s tactical advice includes:

Develop and use consistent visual branding across all social media platforms
Use a tone that reflects the brand’s public persona
Cater to marketing personas based on social media metrics

Companies that fail to develop a consistent, engaging social media presence are not taking full advantage of the marketing tools available in today’s competitive marketplace.

The Future of Social Media

What happens next in social media almost certainly will be shaped by the evolving business model, as well as by advances in storytelling technology. How will mega platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and others make money? How will end users adapt? How will businesses spread their messages and use social media to build audiences? The answers to these questions will determine the next stage of social media’s evolution.

Premium Social Media Services

What does the future hold for social media? According to a recent article in Entrepreneur , “ 11 Ways Social Media Will Evolve in the Future ,” consumers will gravitate toward services that allow them to:

Personalize content at a granular level
Reduce the amount of vitriol and conflict commonly found on public social media feeds
Increase focus on protecting privacy
Take greater advantage of the utility of mobile devices
Focus more on community building

This could mean a movement toward paid subscription services on social media, according to Entrepreneur . The challenge for marketing professionals will be to meet the shifting demands of social media users while maintaining an authentic brand voice.

Social Media Video

Another growing point of emphasis for social media in the future, according to Entrepreneur , will be video content. Video marketing already has a substantial presence in the U.S., where it is a $135 billion industry in 2020 , according to Social Media Today.

According to HubSpot’s “ The Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics for 2020 ,” video became the No. 1 form of media used in content marketing in 2019, surpassing blogs and e-books for the first time. Video’s prominence as a marketing tool is expected to continue to grow, based on the latest information in Wyzowl’s “ The State of Video Marketing in 2020 [New Data] .”

This survey found that 88% of marketers received positive returns on investment through video. Perhaps most significantly, 59% of marketers who said they had not previously used video intended to do so in 2020 and beyond.

What’s Next for Social Media?

The future of social media is limited only by the imagination of its stakeholders. The brief history of the industry has proven that the rapid change — advances in technology, more-strident financial demands, shifting cultural dynamics — will transform the current social media landscape.

Will Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other major platforms go the way of Google+ and MySpace? Will the entrepreneurial heirs of Twitter creator Biz Stone and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg build on the success of their predecessors? Can social media maintain its relevance as technology evolves?

Human beings are social creatures. Commerce is driven by human interaction. These two facts will continue to shape the evolution of social media into the next decade and beyond.

Take Your Next Brave Step

Receive information about the benefits of our programs, the courses you'll take, and what you need to apply.

1.2 How Did We Get Here? The Evolution of Media

Learning objectives.

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

“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. In 2010, Americans could turn on their television and find 24-hour news 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, or television and video available online for streaming or downloading. Half of American households receive a daily newspaper, and the average person holds 1.9 magazine subscriptions. Journalism.org , The State of the News Media 2004 , http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2004/ (accessed July 15, 2010); Jim Bilton, “The Loyalty Challenge: How Magazine Subscriptions Work,” In Circulation , January/February 2007. A University of California San Diego study claimed that U.S. households consumed around 3.6 zettabytes of information in 2008, the digital equivalent of a 7-foot high stack of books covering the entire United States, including Alaska—a 350 percent increase since 1980. Doug Ramsey, “UC San Diego Experts Calculate How Much Information Americans Consume.” University of San Diego News Center, December 9, 2009. Americans are exposed to media in taxicabs and busses, in classrooms and doctors’ offices, on highways and in airplanes.

Later chapters will offer in-depth explorations of how particular media developed in different eras. But we can begin to orient ourselves here by briefly examining a history of media in culture, looking at the ways technological innovations have helped to bring us to where we are today, and finally considering the varied roles the media fill in our culture today.

A Brief History of Mass Media and Culture

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 can be seen as the forerunner to today’s gossip-hungry tabloids.

The penny press appealed to readers’ desires for lurid tales of murder and scandal.

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 of allowing huge numbers of people to listen to the same event at the same time. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge’s preelection 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.” Asa Briggs and Peter Burke, A Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 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.” Digital History, “The Formation of Modern American Mass Culture,” The Jazz Age: The American 1920s , 2007, http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?hhid=454 (accessed July 15, 2010). This boom in consumerism put its stamp on the 1920s, and, ironically, helped contribute to the Great Depression of the 1930s. Library of Congress, “Radio: A Consumer Product and a Producer of Consumption,” http://lcweb2.loc.gov:8081/ammem/amrlhtml/inradio.html (accessed July 15, 2010).

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. Did radio fuel the consumerist boom of the 1920s, or did the radio become wildly popular because it appealed to a society that was already exploring consumerist tendencies? Probably a little bit of both. Technological innovations such as the steam engine, electricity, wireless communication, and the Internet have all had lasting and significant effects on American culture. As media historians Asa Briggs and Peter Burke note, every crucial invention came with “a change in historical perspectives.” Asa Briggs and Peter Burke, A Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2005). 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. Suddenly, information from distant places was nearly as accessible as local news. When the first transatlantic cable was laid in 1858, allowing near-instantaneous communication from the United States to Europe, The London Times described it as “the greatest discovery since that of Columbus, a vast enlargement…given to the sphere of human activity.” Asa Briggs and Peter Burke, A Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2005). Celebrations broke out in New York as people marveled at the new media. Telegraph lines began to stretch across the globe, making their own kind of world wide web.

How was this powerful new medium going to be operated? After much debate, the United States opted for the market. Competing commercial stations (including the radio powerhouses of CBS and NBC) owned stations and sold advertising and commercial-driven programming dominated. Britain took another track with its government-managed British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Funding was driven by licensing fees instead of advertisements. In contrast to the American system, the BBC strictly regulated the length and character of commercials that could be aired. U.S. television, propelled by prosperity, advertising and increasingly powerful networks, flourished. By the beginning of 1955, there were 36 million television sets in the United States, and 4.8 million in all of Europe. Asa Briggs and Peter Burke, A Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2005). Important national events, broadcast live for the first time, were an impetus for consumers to buy sets and participate in the spectacle—both England and Japan saw a boom in sales before important royal weddings in the 1950s.

In the 1960s, the concept of a useful portable computer was still a dream; huge mainframes were required to run a basic operating system.

Why Media? What Do Media Do for Us?

Even a brief history of media can leave one breathless. The speed, reach, and power of the technology are humbling. The evolution can seem almost natural and inevitable, but it is important to stop and ask a basic question: Why? Why do media seem to play such an important role in our lives and our culture? With reflection, we can see that media fulfill several basic roles.

One obvious role is entertainment . Media can act as a springboard for our imaginations, a source of fantasy, and an outlet for escapism. In the 19th century, Victorian readers, disillusioned by the grimness of the Industrial Revolution, found themselves drawn into books that offered fantastic worlds of fairies and other unreal beings. In the first decade of the 21st century, American television viewers could relax at the end of a day by watching singers, both wonderful and terrible, compete to be idols or watch two football teams do battle. Media entertain and distract us in the midst of busy and hard lives.

Media can also provide information and education . Information can come in many forms, and often blurs the line with entertainment. Today, newspapers and news-oriented television and radio programs make available stories from across the globe, allowing readers or viewers in London to have access to voices and videos from Baghdad, Tokyo, or Buenos Aires. Books and magazines provide a more in-depth look at a wide range of subjects. Online encyclopedias have articles on topics from presidential nicknames to child prodigies to tongue-twisters in various languages. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has posted free lecture notes, exams, and audio and video recordings of classes on its OpenCourseWare website, allowing anyone with an Internet connection access to world-class professors.

Another useful aspect of media is its ability to act as a public forum A social space that is open to all, and that serves as a place for discussion of important issues. A public forum is not always a physical space; for example, a newspaper can be considered a public forum. for the discussion of important issues. In newspapers or other periodicals, letters to the editor allow readers to respond to journalists, or voice their opinions on the issues of the day. These letters have been 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. Blogs, discussion boards, and online comments are modern forums. Indeed, the Internet can be seen as a fundamentally democratic medium that allows people who can get online the ability to put their voices out there—though whether anyone will hear is another question.

Media can also serve to monitor government, business, and other institutions . Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle exposed the miserable conditions in the turn-of-the-century meatpacking industry. In the early 1970s, Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered evidence of the Watergate break-in and subsequent cover-up, which eventually led to the resignation of then-president Richard Nixon. Online journalists today try to uphold the “watchdog” role of the media.

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. For example, in terms of print media, books are durable and able to contain lots of information, but are relatively slow and expensive to produce. In contrast, newspapers are comparatively cheaper and quicker to create, making them a better medium for the quick turnover of daily news. Television provides vastly more visual information than radio, and is more dynamic than a static printed page; it can also be used to broadcast live events to a nationwide audience, as in the annual State of the Union addresses given by the U.S. president. However, it is also a one-way medium—that is, it allows for very little direct person-to-person communication. In contrast, the Internet encourages public discussion of issues and allows nearly everyone who wants a voice to have one. However, the Internet is also largely unmoderated and uncurated. Users may have to wade through thousands of inane comments or misinformed amateur opinions in order to find quality information.

As mentioned at the start of this chapter, the 1960s media theorist Marshall McLuhan took these ideas one step further, with the phrase “the medium is the message.” A phrase coined by media theorist Marshall McLuhan asserting that every medium delivers information in a different way, and that content is fundamentally shaped by the medium of transmission. 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 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.” David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (New York: Little Brown, 1997).

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 put it, “Each medium has a special way of representing ideas that emphasize particular ways of thinking and de-emphasize others.” Alan Kay, “The Infobahn is Not the Answer,” Wired , May 1994. 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 Takeaways

Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press enabled the mass production of media, which was then industrialized by Friedrich Koenig in the early 1800s. These innovations enabled the daily newspaper, which united the urbanized, industrialized populations of the 19th century.
In the 20th century, radio allowed advertisers to reach a mass audience and helped spur the consumerism of the 1920s—and the Great Depression of the 1930s. After World War II, television boomed in the United States and abroad, though its concentration in the hands of three major networks led to accusations of conformity. The spread of cable and subsequent deregulation in the 1980s and 1990s led to more channels, but not necessarily more diverse ownership.
Technological transitions have also had great effect on the media industry, although it is difficult to say whether technology caused a cultural shift or rather resulted from it. The ability to make technology small and affordable enough to fit into the home is an important aspect of the popularization of new technologies.

Media fulfill several roles in culture, including the following:

Entertaining and providing an outlet for the imagination
Educating and informing
Serving as a public forum for the discussion of important issues
Acting as a watchdog for government, business, and other institutions

Choose two different types of mass communication—radio shows, television broadcasts, Internet sites, newspaper advertisements, and so on from two different kinds of media. Make a list of what role(s) each one fills, keeping in mind that much of what we see, hear, or read in the mass media has more than one aspect. Consider the following questions: Does the type of media suit the social role? Why did the creators of this particular message present it in the particular way, and in this particular medium?

Top 10: Science in 2016

The 4th revolution: delegated intelligence and its shadows, openmind books, scientific anniversaries, can rainfall and climate change increase the risk of volcanic eruptions, featured author, latest book, first the media, then us: how the internet changed the fundamental nature of the communication and its relationship with the audience.

In just one generation the Internet changed the way we make and experience nearly all of media. Today the very act of consuming media creates an entirely new form of it: the social data layer that tells the story of what we like, what we watch, who and what we pay attention to, and our location when doing so.

The audience, once passive, is now cast in a more central and influential role than ever before. And like anyone suddenly thrust in the spotlight, we’ve been learning a lot, and fast.

This social data layer reveals so much about our behavior that it programs programmers as much as they program us. Writers for the blog website Gawker watch real-time web consumption statistics on all of their posts—and they instantly learn how to craft content to best command an audience. The head programmer for Fox Television Network similarly has a readout that gives an in-depth analysis of audience behavior, interest, and sentiment. In the run-up to the final episode of the American television drama Breaking Bad , the series was drawing up to 100,000 tweets a day, a clear indication that the audience was as interested in what it had to say as what the producers were creating.

All this connected conversation is changing audiences as well. Like Narcissus, we are drawn to ourselves online and to the siren of ever-more social connections. In her book Alone Together , Sherry Turkle (2011) points out that at this time of maximum social connection, we may be experiencing fewer genuine connections than ever before. The renowned media theorist Marshall McLuhan (1968, 73) saw the potential for this more than 40 years ago when he observed that augmentation leads to amputation . In other words, in a car we don’t use our feet—we hit the road and our limbs go into limbo. With cell phones and social devices, we are connected to screens and virtually to friends worldwide, but we may forfeit an authentic connection to the world. Essentially, we arrive at Turkle’s “alone together” state.

In the past, one could turn the media off—put it down, go offline. Now that’s becoming the exception, and for many, an uncomfortable one. Suggest to a young person today that she go offline and she’ll ask, “Offline, what’s that?” or “Why am I being punished?” We are almost always connected to an Internet-enabled device, whether in the form of a smartphone, fitness monitor, car, or screen. We are augmented by sensors, signals, and servers that record vast amounts of data about how we lead our everyday lives, the people we know, the media we consume, and the information we seek. The media, in effect, follows us everywhere, and we’re becoming anesthetized to its presence.

It is jarring to realize that the implication of this total media environment was also anticipated more than 40 years ago by McLuhan. When he spoke of the “global village,” his point was not just that we’d be connected to one another. He was concerned that we’d all know each other’s business, that we’d lose a measure of privacy as a result of living in a world of such intimate awareness. McLuhan (1969) called this “retribalizing,” in the sense that modern media would lead us to mimic the behavior of tribal villages. Today, the effects of this phenomenon help define the media environment: we consciously manage ourselves as brands online; we are more concerned than ever with each other’s business; and we are more easily called out or shamed than in the bygone (and more anonymous) mass communication era.

We maintain deeply intimate relationships with our connected devices. Within minutes of waking up, most of us reach for a smartphone. We go on to check them 150 or more times throughout the day, spending all but two waking hours with a mobile device nearby (IDC 2013). As these devices become omnipresent, more and more data about our lives is nearly permanently stored on servers and made searchable by others (including private corporations and government agencies).

This idea that everything we do can be measured, quantified, and stored is a fundamental shift in the human condition. For thousands of years we’ve had the notion of accountability to an all-seeing, all-knowing God. He kept tabs on us, for our own salvation. It’s one of the things that made religion effective. Now, in just a few thousand days, we’ve deployed the actual all-seeing, all-knowing network here on earth—for purposes less lofty than His, and perhaps even more effective.

We are also in the midst of an unprecedented era of media invention. We’ve passed from the first web-based Internet to the always-connected post-PC world. We will soon find ourselves in an age of pervasive computing, where all devices and things in our built world will be connected and responsive, with the ability to collect and emit data. This has been called the Internet of Things .

In the recent past, the pace of technological change has been rapid—but it is accelerating quickly. One set of numbers tells the story. In 1995, the Internet connected together about 50 million devices. In 2011, the number of connections exceeded 4.3 billion (at the time roughly half of these were people and half were machines). We ran out of Internet addresses that year and are now adopting a new address mechanism called IPv6. This scheme will allow for about 340 billion billion billion billion unique IP addresses. That’s probably the largest number ever seriously used by mankind in the design of anything. (The universe has roughly 40 orders of magnitude more atoms than we have Internet addresses, but man didn’t invent the universe and for the purpose of this chapter it is not a communication medium, so we’ll move on.)

Here is a big number we will contend with, and soon: there will likely be one trillion Internet-connected devices in about 15 years. Nothing on earth will grow faster than this medium or the number of connected devices and the data they emit. Most of these devices will not be people, of course, but the impact of a trillion devices emitting signals and telling stories on our mediated world cannot be overstated.

To visualize the size of all this, imagine the volume of Internet connections in 1995 as the size of the Moon. The Internet of today would be the size of Earth. And the Internet in 15 years the size of giant Jupiter!

Exponential change like this matters because it points out how unreliable it is to predict how media will be used tomorrow. Examining the spotty record of past predictions is humbling and helps open our minds to the future.

In 1878, the year after he invented the phonograph, Thomas Edison had no idea how it would be used; or rather, he had scores of ideas—but he could not come up a priori with the killer application of his hardware. Edison was a shrewd inventor who kept meticulous notes. Here were his top 10 ideas for the use of the phonograph:

Letter writing, and all kinds of dictation without the aid of a stenographer.
Photographic books, which will speak to blind people without effort on their part.
The teaching of elocution.
Music—the phonograph will undoubtedly be liberally devoted to music.
The family record; preserving the sayings, the voices, and the last words of the dying members of the family, as of great men.
Music boxes, toys, etc.—A doll which may speak, sing, cry or laugh may be promised our children for the Christmas holidays ensuing.
Clocks, that should announce in speech the hour of the day, call you to lunch, send your lover home at ten, etc.
The preservation of language by reproduction of our Washingtons, our Lincolns, our Gladstones.
Educational purposes; such as preserving the instructions of a teacher so that the pupil can refer to them at any moment; or learn spelling lessons.
The perfection or advancement of the telephone’s art by the phonograph, making that instrument an auxiliary in the transmission of permanent records.

He first attempted a business centered on stenographer-free letter writing. That failed, largely because it was a big threat to the incumbent player—stenographers. It would be years (and a few recapitalizations) later that music would emerge as the business of phonographs. And this was a business that survived for well over 100 years before cratering.

When I reflect on my own career, I see this pattern of trying to understand—“Exactly what is this anyway?”—constantly repeat itself. In 1993, I collaborated with Bill Gates (1995) as he wrote The Road Ahead . The book outlined what Gates believed would be implications of the personal computing revolution and envisioned a future profoundly impacted by the advent of what would become the Internet. At the time, we called this a “global information superhighway.”

I was working with Gates on envisioning the future of television. This was one year before the launch of the Netscape (then Mosaic) browser brought the World Wide Web to the masses. In 1993, we knew that in the coming years there would be broadband and new distribution channels to connected homes. But the idea that this would all be based on an open Internet eluded us completely. We understood what technology was coming down the pike. But we could not predict how it would be used, or that it would look so different from what we had grown accustomed to, which was centralized media companies delivering mass media content from the top down. In 1993 what we (and Al Gore) imagined was an “information superhighway”—Gates and I believed that this would be a means to deliver Hollywood content to the homes of connected people.

We understood that the Internet would be a means to pipe content to connected homes and to share information. But here’s what we missed:

User-Generated Anything . The idea that the audience, who we treated as mere consumers, would make their own content and fascinate one another with their own ideas, pictures, videos, feeds , and taste preferences ( Likes ) was fantastical. We knew people would publish content—this had been taking place on online bulletin boards and other services for years. But the idea that the public would be such a big part of the media equation simply did not make sense.
The Audience As Distributor, Curator, Arbiter . We’d all be able to find content, because someone big like Microsoft would publish it. The idea that what the audience liked or paid attention to would itself be a key factor in distribution was similarly unfathomable. It would take the invention of Google and its PageRank algorithm to make clear that what everyone was paying attention to was one of the most important (and disruptive) tools in all of media. In the early 2000s, the rise of social media and then social networks would make this idea central.
The Long Tail . In retrospect, it seems obvious: in a world of record shops and video rental stores it cost money to stock physical merchandise. Those economics meant stocking hits was more cost-effective than keeping less popular content on the shelves. But online, where the entire world’s content can be kept on servers, the economics flip: unpopular content is no more expensive to provision that a blockbuster move. As a result, audiences would fracture and find even the most obscure content online more easily than they could at Blockbuster or Borders. This idea was first floated by Clay Shirky in 2003, and then popularized by Wired ’s Chris Anderson in 2004. That was also the year Amazon was founded, which is arguably the company that has capitalized on this trend most. It has been one of the most pervasive and disruptive impacts of the Internet. For not only has the long tail made anything available, but in disintermediating traditional distribution channels it has concentrated power in the hands of the new media giants of today: Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook. (And Microsoft is still struggling to be a relevant actor in this arena.)
The Open Internet . We missed that the architecture of the Internet would be open and power would be distributed. That any one node could be a server or a directory was not how industry or the media business, both hierarchal, had worked. The Internet was crafted for military and academic purposes, and coded into it was a very specific value set about openness with no central point of control. This openness has been central to the rapid growth of all forms of new media. Both diversity and openness have defined the media environment for the last generation. This was no accident—it was an act of willful design, not technological determinism. Bob Khan at DARPA and the team at BBN that crafted the Internet had in mind a specific and radical design. In fact, they first approached AT&T to help create the precursor of the Internet and the American communication giant refused—they wanted no part in building a massive network that they couldn’t control. They were right: not only was it nearly impossible to control, but it devoured the telephony business. But as today’s net neutrality battles point out, the effort to reassert control on the Internet is very real. For 50 years the Cold War was the major ideological battle between the free world and the totalitarian world. Today, it’s a battle for openness on the Internet. The issues—political and economic at their core—continue to underpin the nature of media on the Internet.

The Internet Gives Television a Second Act

New media always change the media that came before it, though often in unexpected ways. When television was born, pundits predicted it would be the death of the book. (It wasn’t.) The death of television was a widely predicted outcome of Internet distribution, the long tail, new content creators, and user-generated media. This caused fear in Hollywood and a certain delight, even schadenfreude in Silicon Valley. At conferences, technology executives took great pleasure in taunting old media with its novel forms and reminding the establishment that “it is only a matter of time.” New media would fracture audiences, and social media would hijack the public’s attention. The Internet was set to unleash an attention-deficit-disorder epidemic, leading viewers away from traditional television programming en masse. Yet television is doing better than ever. What happened?

As it turns out, the most widely discussed topic on social media is television. One third of Twitter users in the United States post about television (Bauder 2012), and more than 10 percent of all tweets are directly related to television programming (Thornton 2013). New forms of content (as well as new distribution methods) have increased the primacy of great programming, not diminished it. Competing platforms from Google, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and others have meant more competition for both network and cable television networks—and more power for program creators over whose content all the new distributors are fighting.

Despite the volume of content accessible via online platforms—100 minutes of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute—people still spend much of their time watching television, and television programming continues to reach a large majority of the population in developed countries. In the United States, people consume an average of 4 hours and 39 minutes of television every day (Selter 2012). In the United Kingdom, nearly 54.2 million people (or about 95 percent of the population above the age of four) watch television in a given week (Deloitte 2012). Thus, it appears that the “demise of television” is far from imminent (Khurana 2012).

In fact, television is better than it has ever been. Few predicted, even five years ago, that we would find ourselves in the middle of a new golden age in television. There is more content vying for our attention than ever before, and yet a number of rich, complex, and critically-acclaimed series have emerged. Shows like Heroes , Mad Men , Breaking Bad , Game of Thrones , and Homeland are a testament to the success with which television has adapted to a new and challenging climate.

Networks are now developing niche shows for smaller audiences, and thrive on distribution and redistribution through new platforms. Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, and HBO GO have pioneered new forms of viewing and served as the catalyst for innovative business deals. The practice of binge viewing , in which we watch an entire season (or more) of a program in a short amount of time, is a product of on-demand streaming sites and social media. Before, viewers would have to consume episodes of televisions as they were aired or wait for syndication. Boxed DVD seasons were another way that audiences could consume many episodes at once, but this often meant waiting for networks to trickle out seasons spaced over time. Now, networks are pushing whole seasons to platforms such as Netflix at once. With enough spare time, one can now digest a whole series in an extremely condensed time frame.

This has changed not only our viewing habits, but also the nature of television content. Screenwriters are now able to develop deeper and more complex storylines than they ever had before. Where once lengthy, complex, and involved storylines were the domain of video games, we see this type of storytelling in drama series with some regularity. In addition, television shows are now constructed differently. As audiences become more conscious of the media and media creators, we find that programming is much more self-referential. Jokes on shows like The Simpsons , Family Guy , 30 Rock , and The Daily Show are often jokes about the media.

The consumption of television via on-demand streaming sites is not the only significant change to how we consume television content. There has been a tremendous shift in how we engage with television programming and how we interact with one another around television.

During the early decades of television, television viewing was a scheduled activity that drew groups of people together in both private homes and public spaces. The programming served as the impetus for such gatherings, and television watching was the primary activity of those who were seated in living rooms or stood before television sets in department stores or bars. Television continued to serve as a group medium through the 1960s and 1970s, but technological innovations ultimately transformed viewer behavior. The remote control, the videotape, the DVR, and mobile devices have led people to consume television content in greater quantities, but they do so increasingly in isolation. Once a highly anticipated social event, television programming is now an omnipresent environmental factor.

As television moved from a communal appointment medium to an individual activity initiated on demand, the community aspect of television has moved to the Internet. We have recreated the social function of television, which was once confined to living rooms, online—the conversation about television has expanded to a global level on social networking sites.

The sharp rise in multiscreen consumption is perhaps one of the most significant changes in modern media consumption, and has been a source of both excitement and concern among television network and technology executives alike. This form of media multitasking, in which a viewer engages with two or more screened devices at once, now accounts for 41 percent of time spent in front of television screens (Moses 2012). More than 60 percent of tablet users (Johnson 2012) and nearly 90 percent of smartphone users (Nielsen 2012) report watching television while using their devices.

Currently, television viewers are more likely to engage with content about television programming (such as Tweets or Facebook status updates) on complementary devices than they are to consume supplementary programming (such as simulcast sports footage) on a second screen. What is clear is that even if we are watching television in isolation, we are not watching alone.

Even when we’re alone, we often watch television with friends. Some 60 percent of viewers watch TV while also using a social network. Of this group, 40 percent discuss what they are currently watching on television via social networks (Ericsson 2012). More than half of 16 to 24-year-olds regularly use complementary devices to communicate with others via messaging, e-mail, Facebook, or Twitter about programs being watched on television (Ericsson 2012).

With all of this online communication, of course, comes data. With exacting precision, Twitter can monitor what causes viewers to post about a given program. During the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, a performance by Jay-Z and Kanye West generated approximately 70,000 tweets per minute (Twitter 2013). Later in the program, the beginning of a performance by Beyoncé generated more than 90,000 tweets per minute. Before she exited the stage, the superstar revealed her pregnancy by unbuttoning her costume. Tweets spiked at 8,868 per second, shattering records set on the social network shortly after such significant events as the resignation of Steve Jobs and the death of Osama Bin Laden (Hernandez 2011).

It is clear that television programming drives social media interaction. But do tweets drive consumers to tune in to a particular program? A report by Nielsen (2013) suggests that there is a two-way causal relationship between tuning in for a broadcast program and the Twitter conversation about that particular program. In nearly half of 221 primetime episodes analyzed in the study, higher levels of tweeting corresponded with additional viewers tuning in to the programming. The report also showed that the volume of tweets sent about a particular program caused significant changes in ratings among nearly 30 percent of the episodes.

The second-screen conversation about television programming is not limited to Twitter. Trendrr (2013), a social networking data analysis platform, recorded five times as much second-screen Facebook activity during one week in May 2013 than on all other social networks combined. Facebook recently released tools that will allow partner networks, including CNN and NBC, to better understand second-screen conversation taking place on the social network as it happens (Gross 2013). Using these tools, it is now possible to break down the number of Facebook posts that mention a certain term during a given time frame.

This real-time data—about who is watching television, where they are watching it from, and what they are saying about it—is of interest not just to television executives and advertisers, but the audience, too. There are several drivers for social television watching behavior, including not wanting to watch alone and the desire to connect with others (Ericsson 2012). Beyond connecting with the audience at large, dual-screen television viewers report using social networks to seek additional information about the program they are watching and to validate their opinions against a public sample.

I’ve witnessed times in my own life where watching TV alone became unacceptable. In order to make my viewing experience tolerable, I needed to lean on the rest of the viewing audience’s sensibility. Moments like these changed my relationship to the medium of television forever.

In January 2009, I watched the inauguration of President Barack Obama on television along with 37.8 million other Americans. As Chief Justice John Roberts administered the oath of office, he strayed from the wording specified in the United States Constitution. I recognized that something had gone wrong—the president and the chief justice flubbed the oath? How could that be? What happened? I immediately turned to Twitter—and watched as everyone else was having the same instantaneous reaction. The audience provided context. I knew what was going on.

Twitter was equally useful to me during Super Bowl XLV when the Black Eyed Peas performed at the halftime show. The pop stars descended from the rafters of Cowboys Stadium and launched into a rendition of their hit song “I Gotta Feeling.” It sounded awful. I turned to my girlfriend in dismay: “There is something wrong with the television. My speakers must have blown! There is no way that a performance during the most-watched television event of all time sounds this horrible.” After tinkering with my sound system to no avail, I thought, “Maybe it’s not me. Could it be? Do they really sound this bad?” A quick check of Twitter allayed my fears of technical difficulties—yes, the Black Eyed Peas sounded terrible. My sound system was fine.

As the level of comfort with and reliance upon multiscreen media consumption grows among audiences, content producers are developing rich second-screen experiences for audiences that enhance the viewing experience.

For example, the Lifetime channel launched a substantial second-screen engagement for the 12th season of reality fashion competition Project Runway (Kondolojy 2013). By visiting playrunway.com during live broadcasts of the show, fans could vote in opinion polls and see results displayed instantly on their television screens. In addition to interactive voting, fans could access short-form video, blogs, and photo galleries via mobile, tablet, and desktop devices.

There are indications that second-screen consumption will move beyond the living room and into venues like movie theaters and sports stadiums. In connection with the theatrical rerelease of the 1989 classic The Little Mermaid , Disney has created an iPad app called “Second Screen Live” that will allow moviegoers to play games, compete with fellow audience members, and sing along with the film’s score from their theater seats (Stedman 2013). In 2014, Major League Baseball will launch an application for wearable computing device Google Glass that will display real-time statistics to fans at baseball stadiums (Thornburgh 2013).

Music: Reworked, Redistributed, and Re-Experienced Courtesy of the Internet

The Internet has also completely transformed the way music is distributed and experienced. In less than a decade physical media (the LP and the CD) gave way to the MP3. Less than a decade after that, cloud-based music services and social sharing have become the norm. These shifts took place despite a music industry that did all it could to resist the digital revolution—until after it had already happened! The shareable, downloadable MP3 surfaced on the early web of the mid-1990s, and the music industry largely failed to recognize its potential. By the early 2000s, the Recording Industry Association of America had filed high-profile lawsuits against peer-to-peer file sharing services like Napster and Limewire (as well as private persons caught downloading music via their networks). Total revenue from music sales in the United States plummeted from $14.6 billion in 1999 to $6.3 billion in just ten years (Goldman 2010).

The truth was inescapable: its unwillingness to adopt new distribution platforms had badly hurt the music industry’s bottom line. Television (having watched the music debacle) adjusted far better to the realities of the content business in the digital age. But the recording industry was forced to catch up to its audience, which was already getting much of its music online (legally or otherwise). Only in recent years did major labels agree to distribution deals with cloud-streaming services including Spotify, Rdio, iHeartRadio, and MOG. The music industry has experienced a slight increase in revenues in the past year, which can be attributed to both digital music sales and streaming royalties (Faughnder 2013).

Ironically, what the music industry fought so hard to prevent (free music and sharing) in the early days of the web is exactly what they ended up with today. There is more music available online now than ever before, and much of it is available for free.

Applications like Spotify and Pandora give users access to vast catalogs of recorded music, and sites like SoundCloud and YouTube have enabled a new generation of artists to distribute their music with ease. There is also a social layer to many music services. Their sites and applications are designed to allow users to share their favorite songs, albums, and artists with one another. Spotify, SoundCloud, and YouTube (among others) enable playlist sharing.

The rapid evolution of online music platforms has led to fundamental changes in the way we interact with music. The process of discovering and digesting music has become an almost frictionless process. Being able to tell Pandora what you like and have it invoke a personalized radio station tailored to your tastes is not only more convenient that what came before it, it’s a qualitatively different medium. Gone are the days when learning about a new artist required flipping through the pages of a magazine (not to mention through stacks of albums at the record store).

As a kid I didn’t have much of a popular music collection, which was somewhat traumatic whenever it came to throwing a party or having friends over. The cool kids had collections; the rest didn’t. Telling friends to bring all their LPs over for the night didn’t make a lot of sense growing up in New York City, where they’d have to drag them along in a taxi or public bus. Fast forward to 2011. I was hosting a cocktail party at my home in San Francisco, which became an experiment in observing the effect of different kinds of Internet music services. In the kitchen, I played music via an iPod that contained songs and albums I had purchased over the years. (And my collection still was not as good as my cool friends.) In the living room, I streamed music via the Pandora app on my iPhone. Guests would pick stations, skip songs, or add variety as the night went on. Upstairs, I ran Spotify from my laptop. I had followed, as the service allows you to do, two friends whose taste I really admired—a DJ from New York, and a young woman from the Bay Area who frequently posted pictures of herself at music festivals to Facebook. In playing a few of their playlists, I had created the ultimate party soundtrack. I came across as a supremely hip host, without having to curate the music myself. Ultimately, everyone gravitated upstairs to dance to my Spotify soundtrack.

The iPod, Pandora, and Spotify all allowed me to digitally deliver music to my guests. However, each delivery device is fundamentally different. Adding music to an iPod is far from a frictionless process. I had purchased the songs on my iPod over the course of several years, and to discover this music I depended on word of mouth of friends or the once-rudimentary recommendations of the iTunes store. Before the introduction of iCloud in 2011, users had to upload songs from their iTunes library to an iPod or iPhone, a process that took time (and depending on the size of a user’s library, required consideration of storage constraints).

With Pandora came access to a huge volume of music. The Internet radio station boasts a catalog of more than 800,000 tracks from 80,000 artists. And it is a learning system that becomes educated about users’ tastes over time. The Music Genome Project is at the core of Pandora technology. What was once a graduate student research project became an effort to “capture the essence of music at the fundamental level.” Using almost 400 attributes to describe and code songs, and a complex mathematical algorithm to organize them, Pandora sought to generate stations that could respond to a listener’s taste and other indicators (such as the “thumbs down,” which would prevent a song from being played on a particular station again).

Spotify has a catalog of nearly 20 million songs. While the size of the service’s catalog is one of its major strengths, so too are its social features. The service, which launched in the United States in 2011 after lengthy negotiations with the major record labels, allowed users to publish their listening activity to Facebook and Twitter. The desktop player enabled users to follow one another, and make public playlists to which others could subscribe. In addition, users could message each other playlists. The sharing of Spotify playlists between connected users mimicked the swapping of mixtape cassettes in the late eighties and early nineties.

All of these are examples of how what the audience creates is a growing part of the creative process.

In the heyday of the album, the exact flow of one song to another and the overall effect was the supreme expression of overall artistic design and control. It wasn’t only the songs—the album represented 144 square inches of cover art and often many interior pages of liner notes in which to build a strong experience and relationship and story for your fans. It was a major advance over the 45, which provided a much smaller opportunity for a relationship with the band. With the arrival of MP3s, all of this was undone. Because we bought only the songs we were interested in, not only was the artist making less money, but he had lost control of what we were listening to and in what order. It didn’t much matter, because we were busy putting together playlists and mixtapes where we (the audience) were in charge of the listening experience.

The Internet has given us many tools that allow us to personalize the listening experience. More than that, listening to music has increasingly become a personal activity, one that is done in isolation. The simplicity with which music can be consumed online has changed music from an immersive media to a more ambient media, one that is easily taken for granted.

Interestingly, the rise in personal consumption of music (via MP3 and the cloud) has coincided with a sharp rise in festival culture. Now more than ever, audiences seek to be together—whether in Indio, California for Coachella; Black Rock City, Nevada for Burning Man; Chicago, Illinois for Lollapalooza; or Miami, Florida for the Ultra Music Festival—to experience music as a collective group.

At a time where we collectively listen to billions of hours of streamed music each month, nothing compels us in a stronger fashion than the opportunity to come together, outdoors, often outside of cell phone range, to bask in performances by our favorite artist. Festival lineups are stacked with independent artists and superstars alike. Interestingly, a lineup is not unlike a long playlist on iTunes. There is no way to catch every performance at South by Southwest or Electric Daisy Carnival—but there is comfort in knowing that many of your favorite artists are there in one place.

This has also proven out economically. At a time when selling recorded music had become ever-more challenging, the business of live music is experiencing a renaissance. In 2013, both weekend-long installments of the Coachella festivals sold out in less than 20 minutes and raked in $47.3 million in revenue (Shoup 2013). The rise of festivals (now one in every state of the U.S.) is a response to the Internet having made the act of consuming recorded music more ambient and banal than ever before while creating the need for greater social and immersive experiences.

At the core of going to a music festival or listening to The White Album with a group of friends is the need to experience music collectively. It is a realization that beyond even the song itself, perhaps the most inspiring and rousing element of music is not just the music itself, but our collective human experience of it.

Today, as the audience is restlessly making its own media, it is also learning fast that with new media come new rules and new exceptions. Media confer power on the formerly passive audience, and with that comes new responsibilities.

This was made startlingly evident in the wake of the April 15, 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. At five o’clock in the evening on April 18, the FBI released a photo one of the suspects and asked the public for help in identifying him. Hours later, the Facebook page of Sunil Tripathi, a student who bore a resemblance to the suspect and was reported missing, was posted to the social news site Reddit. Word spread that this was the bomber. Within hours the story was amplified by the Internet news site BuzzFeed and tweeted to its 100,000 followers. Only, Tripathi had nothing to do with the crime. His worried family had created a Facebook page to help find their missing son. Over the next few hours Tripathi’s family received hundreds of death threats and anti-Islamic messages until the Facebook page was shut down.

The audience was making media, and spontaneously turning rumors into what appeared to be facts but weren’t, and with such velocity that facts were knocked out of the news cycle for hours that day (Kang 2013).

Four days later, an editor of Reddit posted to the blog a fundamental self-examination about crowd-sourced investigations and a reflection of the power of new media:

This crisis has reminded all of us of the fragility of people’s lives and the importance of our communities, online as well as offline. These communities and lives are now interconnected in an unprecedented way. Especially when the stakes are high we must strive to show good judgement and solidarity. One of the greatest strengths of decentralized, self-organizing groups is the ability to quickly incorporate feedback and adapt. reddit was born in the Boston area (Medford, MA to be precise). After this week, which showed the best and worst of reddit’s potential, we hope that Boston will also be where reddit learns to be sensitive of its own power.

(erik [hueypriest] 2013)

We are now able to surround ourselves with news that conforms to our views. We collect friends whose tastes and opinions are our own tastes and opinions. The diversity of the Internet can ironically make us less diverse. Our new media are immersive, seductive, and addictive. We need only turn to today’s headlines to see how this plays out.

On October 8, 2013, a gunman entered a crowded San Francisco commuter train and drew a .45-caliber pistol. He raised his weapon, put it down to wipe his nose, and then took aim at the passengers.

None of the passengers noticed because they were attending to something far more interesting than present reality. They were subsumed by their smartphones and by the network beyond. These were among the most connected commuters in all of history. On the other side of their little screens, passengers had access to much of the world’s media and many of the planet’s people. They were not especially connected to the moment or to one another. They were somewhere else.

Only when the gunman opened fire did anyone look up. By then, 20-year-old Justin Valdez was mortally wounded. The only witness to this event, which took place on a public train, in front of dozens of people, was a security camera, which captured the scene of connected bliss interrupted. The San Francisco Chronicle reported the district attorney’s stunned reaction:

“These weren’t concealed movements—the gun is very clear,” said District Attorney George Gascón. “These people are in very close proximity with him, and nobody sees this. They’re just so engrossed, texting and reading and whatnot. They’re completely oblivious of their surroundings.”

Gascón said that what happened on the light-rail car speaks to a larger dilemma of the digital age. As glowing screens dominate the public sphere, people seem more and more inclined to become engrossed, whether they are in a car or a train or are strolling through an intersection.

In 1968, Marshall McLuhan observed how completely new media work us over. In War and Peace in the Global Village he wrote, “Every new technological innovation is a literal amputation of ourselves in order that it may be amplified and manipulated for social power and action.” (73)

We’ve arrived in full at an always-on, hyper-connected world. A network that connects us together yet can disconnect us from our present reality. An Internet that grants us the ability to create and remix and express ourselves as never before. One that has conferred on us responsibilities and implications we are only beginning to understand. The most powerful tools in media history are not the province of gods, or moguls, but available to practically all mankind. The media has become a two-way contact sport that all of us play. And because the media is us , we share a vital interest and responsibility in the world we create with this, our extraordinary Internet.

Anderson, Chris. “The Long Tail.” Wired , 12.10 (October 2004). http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html

Bauder, David. “Study Shows Growth in Second Screen Users.” Associated Press, December 3, 2012. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/study-shows-growth-second-screen-users

Deloitte. “TV: Why? Perspectives on TV: Dual-Screen, Catch-Up, Connected TV, Advertising, and Why People Watch TV.” MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, 2012. http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-UnitedKingdom/Local%20Assets/Documents/Industries/TMT/uk-tmt-tv-why-perspectives-on-uk-tv.pdf

Edison, Thomas. “The Phonograph and its Future.” North American Review , no. 126 (May–June 1878).

Ericsson. “TV and Video: An Analysis of Evolving Consumer Habits.” An Ericsson Consumer Insight Summary Report, August 2012. http://www.ericsson.com/res/docs/2012/consumerlab/tv_video_consumerlab_report.pdf

Erik [hueypriest]. “Reflections on the Recent Boston Crisis.” Reddit , April 22, 2013. http://blog.reddit.com/2013/04/reflections-on-recent-boston-crisis.html

Faughnder, Ryan. “Global Digital Music Revenue To Reach $11.6 Billion in 2016.” Los Angeles Times , July 24, 2013. http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jul/24/entertainment/la-et-ct-digital-global-music-industry-20130724

Gates, Bill, with Nathan Myhrvold and Peter Reinearson. The Road Ahead . New York: Viking Penguin, 1995.

Goldman, David. “Music’s Lost Decade: Sales Cut in Half.” CNN Money , February 3, 2010. http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/02/news/companies/napster_music_industry/

Gross, Doug. “CNN Among First with New Facebook Data-Sharing Tools.” CNN.com , September 9, 2013. http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/09/tech/social-media/facebook-media-data/index.html

Hernandez, Brian Anthony. “Beyonce’s Baby Inspired More Tweets Per Second Than Steve Jobs’ Passing.” Mashable , December 6, 2011. http://mashable.com/2011/12/06/tweets-per-second-2011/

Ho, Vivian. “Absorbed Device Users Oblivious to Danger.” San Francisco Gate , October 7, 2013. http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Absorbed-device-users-oblivious-to-danger-4876709.php?cmpid=twitter

IDC (International Data Corporation). “Always Connected: How Smartphones and Social Keep Us Engaged.” An IDC Research Report, Sponsored by Facebook. 2013. https://fb-public.app.box.com/s/3iq5x6uwnqtq7ki4q8wk

Johnson, Lauren. “63pc of Tablet Owners Use Device while Watching TV: Study.” Mobile Marketer , September 17, 2012. http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/research/13781.html

Kang, Jay Caspian. “Should Reddit Be Blamed for the Spreading of a Smear?” New York Times , July 25, 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/magazine/should-reddit-be-blamed-for-the-spreading-of-a-smear.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Khurana, Ajeet. “The End of the Television.” Technorati , February 11, 2012. http://technorati.com/entertainment/tv/article/the-end-of-the-television/

Kondolojy, Amanda. “Project Runway To Reveal Biggest Second-Screen Interactivity in Its History for Launch of Season 12.” TV by the Numbers, July 17, 2013. http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2013/07/17/project-runway-to-reveal-biggest-second-screen-interactivity-in-its-history-for-launch-of-season-12/192387/

McLuhan, Marshall. “The Playboy Interview.” Playboy Magazine , March 1969.

———. War and Peace in the Global Village . New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968.

Moses, Lucia. “Data Points: Two-Screen Viewing.” AdWeek . November 7, 2012. http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/data-points-two-screen-viewing-145014

Nielsen Company. “Double Vision: Global Trends in Tablet and Smartphone Use while Watching TV.” Nielsen Newswire, April 5, 2012. http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2012/double-vision-global-trends-in-tablet-and-smartphone-use-while-watching-tv.html

———. “The Follow-Back: Understanding the Two-Way Causal Influence Between Twitter Activity and TV Viewership.” Nielsen Newswire, August 6, 2013. http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2013/the-follow-back–understanding-the-two-way-causal-influence-betw.html

Selter, Brian. “Youths Are Watching, but Less Often on TV.” New York Times , February 8, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/business/media/young-people-are-watching-but-less-often-on-tv.html?_r=2&ref=technology&

Shirky, Clay. “Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality.” First published on the “Networks, Economics, and Culture” mailing list, February 8, 2003. http://shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html

Shoup, Brad. “Deconstructing: Coachella and the Music Festival Industry.” Stereogum , January 28, 2013. http://www.stereogum.com/1245041/deconstructing-coachella-and-the-music-festival-industry/top-stories/lead-story/

Stedman, Alex. “Disney Invites Kids to Bring iPads to Theaters for ‘The Little Mermaid’ Re-Release.” Variety , September 11, 2013. http://variety.com/2013/digital/news/disney-invites-kids-to-bring-ipads-to-theaters-for-the-little-mermaid-re-release-1200608309/

Thornburgh, Tristan. “Blue from Google Glass Allows You to Get Real-Time Info at Baseball Games.” Bleacher Report , September 12, 2013. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1771741-blue-from-google-glass-allows-you-to-get-real-time-info-at-baseball-games

Thornton, Kirby. “Nielsen Engages Twitter for TV Insights.” Media Is Power, March 21, 2013. http://www.mediaispower.com/nielsen-engages-twitter-for-tv-insights/

Trendrr. “New Facebook Data Strengthens Tools for Measuring Second-Screen Activity.” Trendrr (blog), July 23, 2013. https://blog.trendrr.com/2013/07/23/new-facebook-data-strengthens-tools-for-measuring-second-screen-activity/

Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other . New York: Basic Books, 2011.

Twitter. “Twitter on TV: A Producer’s Guide.” Twitter. https://dev.twitter.com/media/twitter-tv (accessed October 9, 2013).

YouTube. “Press: Statistics.” YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.html (accessed October 9, 2013).

Related publications

The Internet's Influence on the Production and Consumption of Culture: Creative Destruction and New Opportunities
Augmented Environments and New Media Forms
The New Media’s Role in Politics

Download Kindle

Download epub, download pdf, more publications related to this article, more about humanities, communications, comments on this publication.

Morbi facilisis elit non mi lacinia lacinia. Nunc eleifend aliquet ipsum, nec blandit augue tincidunt nec. Donec scelerisque feugiat lectus nec congue. Quisque tristique tortor vitae turpis euismod, vitae aliquam dolor pretium. Donec luctus posuere ex sit amet scelerisque. Etiam sed neque magna. Mauris non scelerisque lectus. Ut rutrum ex porta, tristique mi vitae, volutpat urna.

Sed in semper tellus, eu efficitur ante. Quisque felis orci, fermentum quis arcu nec, elementum malesuada magna. Nulla vitae finibus ipsum. Aenean vel sapien a magna faucibus tristique ac et ligula. Sed auctor orci metus, vitae egestas libero lacinia quis. Nulla lacus sapien, efficitur mollis nisi tempor, gravida tincidunt sapien. In massa dui, varius vitae iaculis a, dignissim non felis. Ut sagittis pulvinar nisi, at tincidunt metus venenatis a. Ut aliquam scelerisque interdum. Mauris iaculis purus in nulla consequat, sed fermentum sapien condimentum. Aliquam rutrum erat lectus, nec placerat nisl mollis id. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

Nam nisl nisi, efficitur et sem in, molestie vulputate libero. Quisque quis mattis lorem. Nunc quis convallis diam, id tincidunt risus. Donec nisl odio, convallis vel porttitor sit amet, lobortis a ante. Cras dapibus porta nulla, at laoreet quam euismod vitae. Fusce sollicitudin massa magna, eu dignissim magna cursus id. Quisque vel nisl tempus, lobortis nisl a, ornare lacus. Donec ac interdum massa. Curabitur id diam luctus, mollis augue vel, interdum risus. Nam vitae tortor erat. Proin quis tincidunt lorem.

The Music Industry in an Age of Digital Distribution

Do you want to stay up to date with our new publications.

Receive the OpenMind newsletter with all the latest contents published on our website

OpenMind Books

The Search for Alternatives to Fossil Fuels
View all books

About OpenMind

Connect with us.

Keep up to date with our newsletter

Quote this content

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

1.3 The Evolution of Media

In 2010, Americans could turn on their television and find 24-hour news 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 or television and video available online for streaming or downloading. Much has changed in consumption of legacy media like newspapers: while half of U.S. households received a daily newspaper in the early 2000s (State of the Media, 2004), more recent numbers indicate that newspaper subscriptions have fallen precipitously, as the Pew Research Center for Journalism and Media (2019) makes clear: “The estimated total U.S. daily newspaper circulation (print and digital combined) in 2018 was 28.6 million for weekday and 30.8 million for Sunday, down 8% and 9%, respectively, from the previous year.” Conversely (and perhaps unsurprisingly) use of new media is up. A University of California, San Diego study claimed that U.S. households consumed a total of approximately 3.6 zettabytes of information in 2008—the digital equivalent of a 7-foot high stack of books covering the entire United States—a 350 percent increase since 1980 (Ramsey, 2009). During the COVID-19 pandemic, average wireless data usage increased dramatically: streaming services like Netflix and Disney+ reported skyrocketing subscription rates, resulting in a rise of monthly broadband consumption per household to “as much as 600 gigabytes, about 35% higher than before” (Morison, 2020). Americans are exposed to media in taxicabs and buses, filling up at gas stations, in classrooms and doctors’ offices, on highways, in airplanes, and even in airport bathroom mirrors. We can begin to orient ourselves in the information cloud through parsing what roles the media fill in society, examining its history in society, and looking at the way technological innovations have helped bring us to where we are today.

What Do Media Do for Us?

Media fulfills several basic roles in our society. One obvious role is entertainment. Media can act as a springboard for our imaginations, a source of fantasy, and an outlet for escapism. In the 19th century, Victorian readers disillusioned by the grimness of the Industrial Revolution found themselves drawn into fantastic worlds of fairies and other fictitious beings. In the first decade of the 21st century, American television viewers could peek in on a conflicted Texas high school football team in Friday Night Lights; the violence-plagued drug trade in Baltimore in The Wire; a 1960s-Manhattan ad agency in Mad Men; or the last surviving band of humans in a distant, miserable future in Battlestar Galactica. Through bringing us stories of all kinds, media have the power to take us away from ourselves.

Media can also provide information and education. Information can come in many forms, and it may sometimes be difficult to separate from entertainment. Today, newspapers and news-oriented television and radio programs make available stories from across the globe, allowing readers or viewers in London to access voices and videos from Baghdad, Tokyo, or Buenos Aires. Books and magazines provide a more in-depth look at a wide range of subjects. The free online encyclopedia Wikipedia has articles on topics from presidential nicknames to child prodigies to tongue twisters in various languages. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has posted free lecture notes, exams, and audio and video recordings of classes on its OpenCourseWare website, allowing anyone with an Internet connection access to world-class professors.

Another useful aspect of media is its ability to act as a public forum for the discussion of important issues. In newspapers or other periodicals, letters to the editor allow readers to respond to journalists or to voice their opinions 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. The Internet is a fundamentally democratic medium that allows everyone who can get online the ability to express their opinions through, for example, blogging or podcasting—though whether anyone will hear is another question.

Similarly, media can be used to monitor government, business, and other institutions. Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle exposed the miserable conditions in the turn-of-the-century meatpacking industry; and in the early 1970s, Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered evidence of the Watergate break-in and subsequent cover-up, which eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. But purveyors of mass media may be beholden to particular agendas because of political slant, advertising funds, or ideological bias, thus constraining their ability to act as a watchdog. The following are some of these agendas:

Entertaining and providing an outlet for the imagination
Educating and informing
Serving as a public forum for the discussion of important issues
Acting as a watchdog for government, business, and other institutions

It’s important to remember, though, that not all media are created equal. While some forms of mass communication are better suited to entertainment, others make more sense as a venue for spreading information. In terms of print media, books are durable and able to contain lots of information, but are relatively slow and expensive to produce; in contrast, newspapers are comparatively cheaper and quicker to create, making them a better medium for the quick turnover of daily news. Television provides vastly more visual information than radio and is more dynamic than a static printed page; it can also be used to broadcast live events to a nationwide audience, as in the annual State of the Union address given by the U.S. president. However, it is also a one-way medium—that is, it allows for very little direct person-to-person communication. In contrast, the Internet encourages public discussion of issues and allows nearly everyone who wants a voice to have one. However, the Internet is also largely unmoderated. Users may have to wade through thousands of inane comments or misinformed amateur opinions to find quality information.

The 1960s media theorist Marshall McLuhan took these ideas one step further, famously coining the phrase “the medium is the message” (McLuhan, 1964). By this, McLuhan meant that every medium delivers information in a different way and that content is fundamentally shaped by the medium of 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. That means more stories get published more rapidly and also covered in less depth. A story told on television will probably be flashier, less in-depth, and with less context than the same story covered in a monthly magazine; therefore, people who get the majority of their news from television may have a particular view of the world shaped not by the content of what they watch but its medium. Or, as computer scientist Alan Kay put it, “Each medium has a special way of representing ideas that emphasize particular ways of thinking and de-emphasize others (Kay, 1994).” Kay was writing in 1994, when the Internet was just transitioning from an academic research network to an open public system. A decade and a half later, with the Internet firmly ensconced in our daily lives, McLuhan’s intellectual descendants are the media analysts who claim that the Internet is making us better at associative thinking, or more democratic, or shallower. But McLuhan’s claims don’t leave much space for individual autonomy or resistance. In an essay about television’s effects on contemporary fiction, writer David Foster Wallace 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 (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.

A Brief History of Mass Media, Technology, and Culture

Until Johannes Gutenberg’s 15th-century invention of the movable type printing press, books were painstakingly handwritten and no two copies were exactly the same. The printing press made the mass production of print media possible. Not only was it much cheaper to produce written material, but new transportation technologies also made it easier for texts to reach a wide audience. It’s hard to overstate the importance of Gutenberg’s invention, which helped usher in massive cultural movements like the European Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation. In 1810, another German printer, Friedrich Koenig, pushed media production even further when he essentially hooked the steam engine up to a printing press, enabling the industrialization of printed media. In 1800, a hand-operated printing press could produce about 480 pages per hour; Koenig’s machine more than doubled this rate. (By the 1930s, many printing presses could publish 3,000 pages an hour.)

This increased efficiency went hand in hand with the rise of the daily newspaper. The newspaper was the perfect medium for the increasingly urbanized Americans of the 19th century, who could no longer get their local news merely through gossip and word of mouth. These Americans were living in unfamiliar territory, and newspapers and other media helped them negotiate the rapidly changing world. The Industrial Revolution meant that some people had more leisure time and more money, and media helped them figure out how to spend both. Media theorist Benedict Anderson has argued that newspapers also helped forge a sense of national identity by treating readers across the country as part of one unified community (Anderson, 1991).

In the 1830s, the major daily newspapers faced a new threat from the rise of penny papers, which were low-priced broadsheets that served as a cheaper, more sensational daily news source. They favored news of murder and adventure over the dry political news of the day. While 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 can be seen as the forerunner to today’s gossip-hungry tabloids.

The front page of a copy of The New York Herald in 1861. The lead story is headlined "The United States in Black and White" and shows an image of the United States with "loyal states" marked in white and "rebel states" marked in black. It sold for two cents.

In the early decades of the 20th century, the first major nonprint form of mass media—radio—exploded in popularity. Radios, which were less expensive than telephones and widely available by the 1920s, had the unprecedented ability of allowing huge numbers of people to listen to the same event at the same time. In 1924, 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” because of “a countless audience, sympathetic, pleasure seeking, enthusiastic, curious, interested, approachable in the privacy of their homes (Briggs & Burke, 2005).” The reach of radio also meant that 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 (Mintz, 2007).” This boom in consumerism put its stamp on the 1920s and also helped contribute to the Great Depression of the 1930s (Library of Congress). The consumerist impulse drove production to unprecedented levels, but when the Depression began and consumer demand dropped dramatically, the surplus of production helped further deepen the economic crisis, as more goods were being produced than could be sold.

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, about 17,000 televisions existed in the United States; within 7 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; along with a television, the typical U.S. household owned a car and a house in the suburbs, all of which contributed to the nation’s thriving consumer-based economy (Briggs & Burke, 2005). Broadcast television was the dominant form of mass media, and the three major networks controlled more than 90 percent of the news programs, live events, and sitcoms viewed by Americans. 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 protesters helped intensify the nation’s internal conflicts.

Broadcast technology, including radio and television, had such a hold on 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 it allowed users more flexibility in terms of time—once a person had purchased a magazine, he or she could read it whenever and wherever. Broadcast media , in contrast, usually aired programs on a fixed schedule, which allowed it to both provide a sense of immediacy and fleetingness. Until the advent of digital video recorders in the late 1990s, it was impossible to pause and rewind a live 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 to choose from—one reason for the charges of homogeneity. 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, 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 that left most of the control of the broadcast spectrum 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 social changes. For this reason, it can be difficult to neatly sort the evolution of media into clear causes and effects. Did radio fuel the consumerist boom of the 1920s, or did the radio become wildly popular because it appealed to a society that was already exploring consumerist tendencies? Probably a little bit of both. Technological innovations such as the steam engine, electricity, wireless communication, and the Internet have all had lasting and significant effects on American culture. As media historians Asa Briggs and Peter Burke note, every crucial invention came with “a change in historical perspectives.” Electricity altered the way people thought about time because 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.

A map showing the submarine transatlantic telegraph cable route running between the United Kingdom and North America.

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; it didn’t matter whether a message needed to travel 5 or 500 miles. Suddenly, information from distant places was nearly as accessible as local news, as telegraph lines began to stretch across the globe, making their own kind of World Wide Web. In this way, the telegraph acted as the precursor to much of the technology that followed, including the telephone, radio, television, and Internet. When the first transatlantic cable was laid in 1858, allowing nearly instantaneous communication from the United States to Europe, the London Times described it as “the greatest discovery since that of Columbus, a vast enlargement…given to the sphere of human activity.”

Not long afterward, 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, were involved in early wireless experiments, it was Italian-born Guglielmo Marconi who is recognized as the developer of the first practical wireless radio system. Many people were fascinated by this new invention. Early radio was used for military communication, but soon the technology entered the home. The burgeoning interest in radio inspired hundreds of applications for broadcasting licenses from newspapers and other news outlets, retail stores, schools, and even cities. In the 1920s, large media networks—including the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)—were launched, and they soon began to dominate the airwaves. In 1926, they owned 6.4 percent of U.S. broadcasting stations; by 1931, that number had risen to 30 percent.

Side-by-side images of original movie posters for Gone with the Wind and the Wizard of Oz.

In addition to the breakthroughs in audio broadcasting, inventors in the 1800s made significant advances in visual media. The 19th-century development of photographic technologies would lead to the later innovations of cinema and television. As with wireless technology, several inventors independently created a form of photography at the same time, among them the French inventors Joseph Niépce and Louis Daguerre and the British scientist William Henry Fox Talbot. In the United States, George Eastman developed the Kodak camera in 1888, anticipating that Americans would welcome an inexpensive, easy-to-use camera into their homes as they had with the radio and telephone. 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 1920s, Hollywood had already created its first stars, most notably Charlie Chaplin; 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—which consists of an image being converted to electrical impulses, transmitted through wires or radio waves, and then reconverted into images—existed before World War II, but gained mainstream popularity in the 1950s. In 1947, there were 178,000 television sets made in the United States; 5 years later, 15 million were made. Radio, cinema, and live theater declined because the new medium allowed viewers to be entertained with sound and moving pictures in their homes. In the United States, competing commercial stations (including the radio powerhouses of CBS and NBC) meant that commercial-driven programming dominated. In Great Britain, the government managed broadcasting through the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Funding was driven by licensing fees instead of advertisements. In contrast to the U.S. system, the BBC strictly regulated the length and character of commercials that could be aired. However, U.S. television (and its increasingly powerful networks) still dominated. By the beginning of 1955, there were around 36 million television sets in the United States, but only 4.8 million in all of Europe. Important national events, broadcast live for the first time, were an impetus for consumers to buy sets so they could witness the spectacle; both England and Japan saw a boom in sales before important royal weddings in the 1950s.

In 1969, management consultant Peter Drucker predicted that the next major technological innovation would be an electronic appliance that would revolutionize the way people lived just as thoroughly as Thomas Edison’s light bulb had. This appliance would sell for less than a television set and be “capable of being plugged in wherever there is electricity and giving immediate access to all the information needed for school work from first grade through college.” Although Drucker may have underestimated the cost of this hypothetical machine, he was prescient about the effect these machines—personal 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 to the Internet age. As Briggs and Burke 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.” This process, also known as convergence , is a force that’s affecting media today.

Anderson, Benedict Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, (London: Verso, 1991)

Briggs and Burke, Social History of the Media.

Briggs, Asa and Peter Burke, A Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2005).

Kay, Alan. “The Infobahn Is Not the Answer,” Wired, May 1994.

Library of Congress, “Radio: A Consumer Product and a Producer of Consumption,” Coolidge-Consumerism Collection, http://lcweb2.loc.gov:8081/ammem/amrlhtml/inradio.html .

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964).

Mintz, Steven “The Jazz Age: The American 1920s: The Formation of Modern American Mass Culture,” Digital History, 2007, http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?hhid=454 .

Morison, Rachel. “Secrets of Lockdown Lifestyle Laid Bare in Electricity Data.” Bloomberg News, 2020 (April 21). https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-22/secrets-of-the-lockdown-lifestyle-laid-bare-in-power-market-data

Pew Research Center for Journalism and Media (2019, July 9). Newspapers Fact Sheet. https://www.journalism.org/fact-sheet/newspapers/

Ramsey, Doug. “UC San Diego Experts Calculate How Much Information Americans Consume” UC San Diego News Center, December 9, 2009, http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/general/12-09Information.asp .

State of the Media, project for Excellence in Journalism, The State of the News Media 2004, http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2004/ .

Wallace, David Foster “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction,” in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (New York: Little Brown, 1997).

A space, physical or otherwise, that allows open expression and sharing of ideas. This may include the way mass media allow discussion of ideas, but it might also fall under specific First Amendment guidelines.

Information transmitted to large segments of a population or society. This communication is typically one-to-many, though digital and “new media” technologies have also made many-to-many possible. Mass communication tends rely on mediated communication in some form.

Media technologies, such as television and radio, which send out signals through the air utilizing portions of the electromagnentic spectrum (called the broadcast spectrum). In the U.S., broadcast media are regulated differently than cable and internet media.

Media forms produced mechanically using printing, photocopying, etc. which results in “ink and paper” communication. This includes books, newspapers, and magazines and represents some of the earliest forms of both mediated communication and media literacies.

The first significant overhaul of telecommunications law in the U.S. since 1934 that emphasized deregulation, privatization, and cross-ownership in response to the rise of new digital and Internet technologies.

U.S. government agency founded in 1934 which is responsible for regulating radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable communication in the United States.

The media context, usually digital and online but not essentially, where one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many forms of discourse prevail. Newspapers, radio and TV are regarded as examples of old media.

The global computer network that provides a range of information and communication facilities, which is made up of a distributed network of computers using standardized protocols.

Convergence is a feature of recent media environments where texts cross multiple media platforms and audiences travel between them with ease or when technologies take on multiple functions as when cellphones are used not just to talk and text but to listen to music, watch videos and play games.

Media & Society: Critical Approaches Copyright © by Randy Nichols; Alexandra Nutter; and Ellen Moore is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

Chapter 8: The Media

The Evolution of the Media

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Discuss the history of major media formats
Compare important changes in media types over time
Explain how citizens learn political information from the media

PRINT MEDIA

Early news was presented to local populations through the print press. While several colonies had printers and occasional newspapers, high literacy rates combined with the desire for self-government made Boston a perfect location for the creation of a newspaper, and the first continuous press was started there in 1704. [1] Newspapers spread information about local events and activities. The Stamp Tax of 1765 raised costs for publishers, however, leading several newspapers to fold under the increased cost of paper. The repeal of the Stamp Tax in 1766 quieted concerns for a short while, but editors and writers soon began questioning the right of the British to rule over the colonies. Newspapers took part in the effort to inform citizens of British misdeeds and incite attempts to revolt. Readership across the colonies increased to nearly forty thousand homes (among a total population of two million), and daily papers sprang up in large cities. [2]

In 1896, Adolph Ochs purchased the New York Times with the goal of creating a dignified newspaper that would provide readers with important news about the economy, politics, and the world rather than gossip and comics. The New York Times brought back the informational model, which exhibits impartiality and accuracy and promotes transparency in government and politics. With the arrival of the Progressive Era, the media began muckraking: the writing and publishing of news coverage that exposed corrupt business and government practices. Investigative work like Upton Sinclair’s serialized novel The Jungle led to changes in the way industrial workers were treated and local political machines were run. The Pure Food and Drug Act and other laws were passed to protect consumers and employees from unsafe food processing practices. Local and state government officials who participated in bribery and corruption became the centerpieces of exposés.

Some muckraking journalism still appears today, and the quicker movement of information through the system would seem to suggest an environment for yet more investigative work and the punch of exposés than in the past. However, at the same time there are fewer journalists being hired than there used to be. The scarcity of journalists and the lack of time to dig for details in a 24-hour, profit-oriented news model make investigative stories rare. [4] There are two potential concerns about the decline of investigative journalism in the digital age. First, one potential shortcoming is that the quality of news content will become uneven in depth and quality, which could lead to a less informed citizenry. Second, if investigative journalism in its systematic form declines, then the cases of wrongdoing that are the objects of such investigations would have a greater chance of going on undetected.

In the twenty-first century, newspapers have struggled to stay financially stable. Print media earned $44.9 billion from ads in 2003, but only $16.4 billion from ads in 2014. [5] Given the countless alternate forms of news, many of which are free, newspaper subscriptions have fallen. Advertising and especially classified ad revenue dipped. Many newspapers now maintain both a print and an Internet presence in order to compete for readers. The rise of free news blogs, such as the Huffington Post , have made it difficult for newspapers to force readers to purchase online subscriptions to access material they place behind a digital paywall . Some local newspapers, in an effort to stay visible and profitable, have turned to social media, like Facebook and Twitter. Stories can be posted and retweeted, allowing readers to comment and forward material. [6] Yet, overall, newspapers have adapted, becoming leaner—though less thorough and investigative—versions of their earlier selves.

As radio listenership grew, politicians realized that the medium offered a way to reach the public in a personal manner. Warren Harding was the first president to regularly give speeches over the radio. President Herbert Hoover used radio as well, mainly to announce government programs on aid and unemployment relief. [9] Yet it was Franklin D. Roosevelt who became famous for harnessing the political power of radio. On entering office in March 1933, President Roosevelt needed to quiet public fears about the economy and prevent people from removing their money from the banks. He delivered his first radio speech eight days after assuming the presidency:

“My friends: I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking—to talk with the comparatively few who understand the mechanics of banking, but more particularly with the overwhelming majority of you who use banks for the making of deposits and the drawing of checks. I want to tell you what has been done in the last few days, and why it was done, and what the next steps are going to be.” [10]

Roosevelt spoke directly to the people and addressed them as equals. One listener described the chats as soothing, with the president acting like a father, sitting in the room with the family, cutting through the political nonsense and describing what help he needed from each family member. [11] Roosevelt would sit down and explain his ideas and actions directly to the people on a regular basis, confident that he could convince voters of their value. [12] His speeches became known as “fireside chats” and formed an important way for him to promote his New Deal agenda. Roosevelt’s combination of persuasive rhetoric and the media allowed him to expand both the government and the presidency beyond their traditional roles. [13]

The first television advertisements, run by presidential candidates Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson in the early 1950s, were mainly radio jingles with animation or short question-and-answer sessions. In 1960, John F. Kennedy’s campaign used a Hollywood-style approach to promote his image as young and vibrant. The Kennedy campaign ran interesting and engaging ads, featuring Kennedy, his wife Jacqueline, and everyday citizens who supported him.

Television was also useful to combat scandals and accusations of impropriety. Republican vice presidential candidate Richard Nixon used a televised speech in 1952 to address accusations that he had taken money from a political campaign fund illegally. Nixon laid out his finances, investments, and debts and ended by saying that the only election gift the family had received was a cocker spaniel the children named Checkers. [16] The “Checkers speech” was remembered more for humanizing Nixon than for proving he had not taken money from the campaign account. Yet it was enough to quiet accusations. Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro similarly used television to answer accusations in 1984, holding a televised press conference to answer questions for over two hours about her husband’s business dealings and tax returns. [17]

In addition to television ads, the 1960 election also featured the first televised presidential debate. By that time most households had a television. Kennedy’s careful grooming and practiced body language allowed viewers to focus on his presidential demeanor. His opponent, Richard Nixon, was still recovering from a severe case of the flu. While Nixon’s substantive answers and debate skills made a favorable impression on radio listeners, viewers’ reaction to his sweaty appearance and obvious discomfort demonstrated that live television had the potential to make or break a candidate. [18] In 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson was ahead in the polls, and he let Barry Goldwater’s campaign know he did not want to debate. [19] Nixon, who ran for president again in 1968 and 1972, declined to debate. Then in 1976, President Gerald Ford, who was behind in the polls, invited Jimmy Carter to debate, and televised debates became a regular part of future presidential campaigns. [20]

LINK TO LEARNING

Visit American Rhetoric for free access to speeches, video, and audio of famous presidential and political speeches.

Some of the best examples of this power occurred when presidents used television to inspire and comfort the population during a national emergency. These speeches aided in the “rally ’round the flag” phenomenon, which occurs when a population feels threatened and unites around the president. [22] During these periods, presidents may receive heightened approval ratings, in part due to the media’s decision about what to cover. [23] In 1995, President Bill Clinton comforted and encouraged the families of the employees and children killed at the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building. Clinton reminded the nation that children learn through action, and so we must speak up against violence and face evil acts with good acts. [24]

Following their speeches, both presidents also received a bump in popularity. Clinton’s approval rating rose from 46 to 51 percent, and Bush’s from 51 to 90 percent. [26]

NEW MEDIA TRENDS

The invention of cable in the 1980s and the expansion of the Internet in the 2000s opened up more options for media consumers than ever before. Viewers can watch nearly anything at the click of a button, bypass commercials, and record programs of interest. The resulting saturation, or inundation of information, may lead viewers to abandon the news entirely or become more suspicious and fatigued about politics. [27] This effect, in turn, also changes the president’s ability to reach out to citizens. For example, viewership of the president’s annual State of the Union address has decreased over the years, from sixty-seven million viewers in 1993 to thirty-two million in 2015. [28] Citizens who want to watch reality television and movies can easily avoid the news, leaving presidents with no sure way to communicate with the public. [29] Other voices, such as those of talk show hosts and political pundits, now fill the gap.

Electoral candidates have also lost some media ground. In horse-race coverage , modern journalists analyze campaigns and blunders or the overall race, rather than interviewing the candidates or discussing their issue positions. Some argue that this shallow coverage is a result of candidates’ trying to control the journalists by limiting interviews and quotes. In an effort to regain control of the story, journalists begin analyzing campaigns without input from the candidates. [30] The use of social media by candidates provides a countervailing trend. President Trump’s hundreds of election tweets are the stuff of legend. These tweets kept his press coverage up, although they also were problematic for him at times. The final days of the contest saw no new tweets from Trump as he attempted to stay on message.

The First Social Media Candidate

By Election Day, Obama’s skill with the web was clear: he had over two million Facebook supporters, while McCain had 600,000. Obama had 112,000 followers on Twitter, and McCain had only 4,600. [32]

Are there any disadvantages to a presidential candidate’s use of social media and the Internet for campaign purposes? Why or why not?

The availability of the Internet and social media has moved some control of the message back into the presidents’ and candidates’ hands. Politicians can now connect to the people directly, bypassing journalists. When Barack Obama’s minister, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, was accused of making inflammatory racial sermons in 2008, Obama used YouTube to respond to charges that he shared Wright’s beliefs. The video drew more than seven million views. [33] To reach out to supporters and voters, the White House maintains a YouTube channel and a Facebook site, as did the recent Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner.

Social media, like Facebook, also placed journalism in the hands of citizens: citizen journalism occurs when citizens use their personal recording devices and cell phones to capture events and post them on the Internet. In 2012, citizen journalists caught both presidential candidates by surprise. Mitt Romney was taped by a bartender’s personal camera saying that 47 percent of Americans would vote for President Obama because they were dependent on the government. [34] Obama was recorded by a Huffington Post volunteer saying that some Midwesterners “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” due to their frustration with the economy. [35] More recently, as Donald Trump was trying to close out the fall 2016 campaign, his musings about having his way with women were revealed on the infamous Billy Bush Access Hollywood tape. These statements became nightmares for the campaigns. As journalism continues to scale back and hire fewer professional writers in an effort to control costs, citizen journalism may become the new normal. [36]

Another shift in the new media is a change in viewers’ preferred programming. Younger viewers, especially members of Generation X and Millennials, like their newscasts to be humorous. The popularity of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report demonstrate that news, even political news, can win young viewers if delivered well. [37] Such soft news presents news in an entertaining and approachable manner, painlessly introducing a variety of topics. While the depth or quality of reporting may be less than ideal, these shows can sound an alarm as needed to raise citizen awareness. [38]

Viewers who watch or listen to programs like John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight are more likely to be aware and observant of political events and foreign policy crises than they would otherwise be. [39] They may view opposing party candidates more favorably because the low-partisan, friendly interview styles allow politicians to relax and be conversational rather than defensive. [40] Because viewers of political comedy shows watch the news frequently, they may, in fact, be more politically knowledgeable than citizens viewing national news. In two studies researchers interviewed respondents and asked knowledge questions about current events and situations. Viewers of The Daily Show scored more correct answers than viewers of news programming and news stations. [41] That being said, it is not clear whether the number of viewers is large enough to make a big impact on politics, nor do we know whether the learning is long term or short term. [42]

GET CONNECTED!

Becoming a Citizen Journalist

What local meetings could you cover? What issues are important to you and your peers?

CHAPTER REVIEW

See the Chapter 8.2 Review for a summary of this section, the key vocabulary , and some review questions to check your knowledge.

Fellow. American Media History. ↵
"Population in the Colonial and Continental Periods," http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/00165897ch01.pdf (November 18, 2015); Fellow. American Media History. ↵
Lars Willnat and David H. Weaver. 2014. The American Journalist in the Digital Age: Key Findings. Bloomington, IN: School of Journalism, Indiana University. ↵
Michael Barthel. 29 April 2015. "Newspapers: Factsheet," http://www.journalism.org/2015/04/29/newspapers-fact-sheet/ . ↵
"Facebook and Twitter—New but Limited Parts of the Local News System," Pew Research Center, 5 March 2015. ↵
"1940 Census," http://www.census.gov/1940census (September 6, 2015). ↵
Steve Craig. 2009. Out of the Dark: A History of Radio and Rural America. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. ↵
"Herbert Hoover: Radio Address to the Nation on Unemployment Relief," The American Presidency Project, 18 October 1931, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=22855 . ↵
"Franklin Delano Roosevelt: First Fireside Chat," http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrfirstfiresidechat.html (August 20, 2015). ↵
"The Fireside Chats," https://www.history.com/topics/fireside-chats (November 20, 2015); Fellow. American Media History, 256. ↵
"FDR: A Voice of Hope," http://www.history.com/topics/fireside-chats (September 10, 2015). ↵
Mary E. Stuckey. 2012. "FDR, the Rhetoric of Vision, and the Creation of a National Synoptic State." Quarterly Journal of Speech 98, No. 3: 297–319. ↵
Sheila Marikar, "Howard Stern’s Five Most Outrageous Offenses," ABC News, 14 May 2012. ↵
Lee Huebner, "The Checkers Speech after 60 Years," The Atlantic, 22 September 2012. ↵
Joel K. Goldstein, "Mondale-Ferraro: Changing History," Huffington Post, 27 March 2011. ↵
Shanto Iyengar. 2016. Media Politics: A Citizen’s Guide, 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton. ↵
Bob Greene, "When Candidates said ‘No’ to Debates," CNN, 1 October 2012. ↵
"The Ford/Carter Debates," http://www.pbs.org/newshour/spc/debatingourdestiny/doc1976.html (November 21, 2015); Kayla Webley, "How the Nixon-Kennedy Debate Changed the World," Time, 23 September 2010. ↵
Matthew A. Baum and Samuel Kernell. 1999. "Has Cable Ended the Golden Age of Presidential Television?" The American Political Science Review 93, No. 1: 99–114. ↵
Alan J. Lambert1, J. P. Schott1, and Laura Scherer. 2011. "Threat, Politics, and Attitudes toward a Greater Understanding of Rally-’Round-the-Flag Effects," Current Directions in Psychological Science 20, No. 6: 343–348. ↵
Tim Groeling and Matthew A. Baum. 2008. "Crossing the Water’s Edge: Elite Rhetoric, Media Coverage, and the Rally-Round-the-Flag Phenomenon," Journal of Politics 70, No. 4: 1065–1085. ↵
"William Jefferson Clinton: Oklahoma Bombing Memorial Prayer Service Address," 23 April 1995, http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/wjcoklahomabombingspeech.htm . ↵
Ian Christopher McCaleb, "Bush tours ground zero in lower Manhattan," CNN, 14 September 2001. ↵
"Presidential Job Approval Center," http://www.gallup.com/poll/124922/presidential-job-approval-center.aspx (August 28, 2015). ↵
Alison Dagnes. 2010. Politics on Demand: The Effects of 24-hour News on American Politics. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. ↵
"Number of Viewers of the State of the Union Addresses from 1993 to 2015 (in millions)," http://www.statista.com/statistics/252425/state-of-the-union-address-viewer-numbers (August 28, 2015). ↵
Baum and Kernell, "Has Cable Ended the Golden Age of Presidential Television?" ↵
Shanto Iyengar. 2011. "The Media Game: New Moves, Old Strategies," The Forum: Press Politics and Political Science 9, No. 1, http://pcl.stanford.edu/research/2011/iyengar-mediagame.pdf . ↵
Jeff Zeleny, "Lose the BlackBerry? Yes He Can, Maybe," New York Times, 15 November 2008. ↵
Matthew Fraser and Soumitra Dutta, "Obama’s win means future elections must be fought online," Guardian, 7 November 2008. ↵
Iyengar, "The Media Game." ↵
David Corn. 29 July 2013. "Mitt Romeny’s Incredible 47-Percent Denial," http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/07/mitt-romney-47-percent-denial . ↵
Ed Pilkington, "Obama Angers Midwest Voters with Guns and Religion Remark," Guardian, 14 April 2008. ↵
Amy Mitchell, "State of the News Media 2015," Pew Research Center, 29 April 2015. ↵
Tom Huddleston, Jr., "Jon Stewart Just Punched a $250 Million Hole in Viacom’s Value," Fortune, 11 February 2015. ↵
John Zaller. 2003. "A New Standard of News Quality: Burglar Alarms for the Monitorial Citizen," Political Communication 20, No. 2: 109–130. ↵
Matthew A. Baum. 2002. "Sex, Lies and War: How Soft News Brings Foreign Policy to the Inattentive Public," American Political Science Review 96, no. 1: 91–109. ↵
Matthew Baum. 2003. "Soft News and Political Knowledge: Evidence of Absence or Absence of Evidence?" Political Communication 20, No. 2: 173–190. ↵
"Public Knowledge of Current Affairs Little Changed by News and Information Revolutions," Pew Research Center, 15 April 2007; "What You Know Depends on What You Watch: Current Events Knowledge across Popular News Sources," Fairleigh Dickinson University, 3 May 2012, http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2012/confirmed/ . ↵
Markus Prior. 2003. "Any Good News in Soft News? The Impact of Soft News Preference on Political Knowledge," Political Communication 20, No. 2: 149–171. ↵

period during the 1780s in which newspaper content was biased by political partisanship

sensationalized coverage of scandals and human interest stories

news coverage focusing on exposing corrupt business and government practices

the need for a paid subscription to access published online material

video and print news posted to the Internet or social media by citizens rather than the news media

news presented in an entertaining style

Share This Book

Chapter 1: Media and Culture

1.3 the evolution of media, learning objectives.

Identify four roles the media performs in our society.
Recognize events that affected the adoption of mass media.
Explain how different technological transitions have shaped media industries.

What Does Media Do for Us?

Media fulfills several basic roles in our society. One obvious role is entertainment. Media can act as a springboard for our imaginations, a source of fantasy, and an outlet for escapism. In the 19th century, Victorian readers disillusioned by the grimness of the Industrial Revolution found themselves drawn into fantastic worlds of fairies and other fictitious beings. In the first decade of the 21st century, American television viewers could peek in on a conflicted Texas high school football team in Friday Night Lights ; the violence-plagued drug trade in Baltimore in The Wire ; a 1960s-Manhattan ad agency in Mad Men ; or the last surviving band of humans in a distant, miserable future in Battlestar Galactica . Through bringing us stories of all kinds, media has the power to take us away from ourselves.

Entertaining and providing an outlet for the imagination
Educating and informing
Serving as a public forum for the discussion of important issues
Acting as a watchdog for government, business, and other institutions

The 1960s media theorist Marshall McLuhan took these ideas one step further, famously coining the phrase “ the medium is the message (McLuhan, 1964).” By this, McLuhan meant that every medium delivers information in a different way and that content is fundamentally shaped by the medium of 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. That means more stories get covered in less depth. A story told on television will probably be flashier, less in-depth, and with less context than the same story covered in a monthly magazine; therefore, people who get the majority of their news from television may have a particular view of the world shaped not by the content of what they watch but its medium . Or, as computer scientist Alan Kay put it, “Each medium has a special way of representing ideas that emphasize particular ways of thinking and de-emphasize others (Kay, 1994).” Kay was writing in 1994, when the Internet was just transitioning from an academic research network to an open public system. A decade and a half later, with the Internet firmly ensconced in our daily lives, McLuhan’s intellectual descendants are the media analysts who claim that the Internet is making us better at associative thinking, or more democratic, or shallower. But McLuhan’s claims don’t leave much space for individual autonomy or resistance. In an essay about television’s effects on contemporary fiction, writer David Foster Wallace 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 (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.

A Brief History of Mass Media and Culture

Figure 1.3 The penny press appealed to readers’ desires for lurid tales of murder and scandal. Wikimedia Commons – public domain.

In the early decades of the 20th century, the first major nonprint form of mass media—radio—exploded in popularity. Radios, which were less expensive than telephones and widely available by the 1920s, had the unprecedented ability of allowing huge numbers of people to listen to the same event at the same time. In 1924, Calvin Coolidge’s preelection 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” because of “a countless audience, sympathetic, pleasure seeking, enthusiastic, curious, interested, approachable in the privacy of their homes (Briggs & Burke, 2005).” The reach of radio also meant that 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 (Mintz, 2007).” This boom in consumerism put its stamp on the 1920s and also helped contribute to the Great Depression of the 1930s (Library of Congress). The consumerist impulse drove production to unprecedented levels, but when the Depression began and consumer demand dropped dramatically, the surplus of production helped further deepen the economic crisis, as more goods were being produced than could be sold.

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, about 17,000 televisions existed in the United States; within 7 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; along with a television, the typical U.S. household owned a car and a house in the suburbs, all of which contributed to the nation’s thriving consumer-based economy (Briggs & Burke, 2005). Broadcast television was the dominant form of mass media, and the three major networks controlled more than 90 percent of the news programs, live events, and sitcoms viewed by Americans. 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 protesters helped intensify the nation’s internal conflicts.

Broadcast technology, including radio and television, had such a hold on 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 it allowed users more flexibility in terms of time—once a person had purchased a magazine, he or she could read it whenever and wherever. Broadcast media, in contrast, usually aired programs on a fixed schedule, which allowed it to both provide a sense of immediacy and fleetingness. Until the advent of digital video recorders in the late 1990s, it was impossible to pause and rewind a live 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 to choose from—one reason for the charges of homogeneity. 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, 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 that left most of the control of the broadcast spectrum 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

Figure 1.4 The transatlantic telegraph cable made nearly instantaneous communication between the United States and Europe possible for the first time in 1858. Amber Case – 1858 trans-Atlantic telegraph cable route – CC BY-NC 2.0.

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; it didn’t matter whether a message needed to travel 5 or 500 miles. Suddenly, information from distant places was nearly as accessible as local news, as telegraph lines began to stretch across the globe, making their own kind of World Wide Web. In this way, the telegraph acted as the precursor to much of the technology that followed, including the telephone, radio, television, and Internet. When the first transatlantic cable was laid in 1858, allowing nearly instantaneous communication from the United States to Europe, the London Times described it as “the greatest discovery since that of Columbus, a vast enlargement…given to the sphere of human activity.”

Figure 1.5 Gone With the Wind defeated The Wizard of Oz to become the first color film ever to win the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1939. Wikimedia Commons – public domain; Wikimedia Commons – public domain.

Figure 1.6 In the 1960s, the concept of a useful portable computer was still a dream; huge mainframes were required to run a basic operating system. Wikimedia Commons – public domain.

Key Takeaways

Media fulfills several roles in society, including the following:

entertaining and providing an outlet for the imagination,
educating and informing,
serving as a public forum for the discussion of important issues, and
acting as a watchdog for government, business, and other institutions.
Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press enabled the mass production of media, which was then industrialized by Friedrich Koenig in the early 1800s. These innovations led to the daily newspaper, which united the urbanized, industrialized populations of the 19th century.
In the 20th century, radio allowed advertisers to reach a mass audience and helped spur the consumerism of the 1920s—and the Great Depression of the 1930s. After World War II, television boomed in the United States and abroad, though its concentration in the hands of three major networks led to accusations of homogenization. The spread of cable and subsequent deregulation in the 1980s and 1990s led to more channels, but not necessarily to more diverse ownership.
Transitions from one technology to another have greatly affected the media industry, although it is difficult to say whether technology caused a cultural shift or resulted from it. The ability to make technology small and affordable enough to fit into the home is an important aspect of the popularization of new technologies.

Choose two different types of mass communication—radio shows, television broadcasts, Internet sites, newspaper advertisements, and so on—from two different kinds of media. Make a list of what role(s) each one fills, keeping in mind that much of what we see, hear, or read in the mass media has more than one aspect. Then, answer the following questions. Each response should be a minimum of one paragraph.

To which of the four roles media plays in society do your selections correspond? Why did the creators of these particular messages present them in these particular ways and in these particular mediums?
What events have shaped the adoption of the two kinds of media you selected?
How have technological transitions shaped the industries involved in the two kinds of media you have selected?

Anderson, Benedict Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism , (London: Verso, 1991).

Bilton, Jim. “The Loyalty Challenge: How Magazine Subscriptions Work,” In Circulation , January/February 2007.

Briggs and Burke, Social History of the Media .

Briggs, Asa and Peter Burke, A Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2005).

Kay, Alan. “The Infobahn Is Not the Answer,” Wired , May 1994.

Library of Congress, “Radio: A Consumer Product and a Producer of Consumption,” Coolidge-Consumerism Collection, http://lcweb2.loc.gov:8081/ammem/amrlhtml/inradio.html .

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man , (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964).

Mintz, Steven “The Jazz Age: The American 1920s: The Formation of Modern American Mass Culture,” Digital History , 2007, http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?hhid=454 .

Ramsey, Doug. “UC San Diego Experts Calculate How Much Information Americans Consume” UC San Diego News Center, December 9, 2009, http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/general/12-09Information.asp .

State of the Media, project for Excellence in Journalism, The State of the News Media 2004 , http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2004/ .

Wallace, David Foster “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction,” in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (New York: Little Brown, 1997).

Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication. Provided by : This adapted edition is produced by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing through the eLearning Support Initiative.. Located at : https://open.lib.umn.edu/mediaandculture/ . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Sports Betting
Sports Entertainment

“It’s such a great highlight for women who haven’t really gotten the time to show who they are and what they can do,” Bayley said. … “They’re having some of the best matches. These are PLE-level matches … I feel like they deserve more matches like this, spotlights, more tournaments”

It shined a light on WWE’s reluctance to make an all-women’s show a semi-regular occurrence.

Evolution 2 https://t.co/xebwRFmIfJ — Bayley (@itsBayleyWWE) May 19, 2024

I don’t think you need to do it every year in an already crowded calendar, but having one and then six years later not doing one again makes it look like the show was simply a way to maximize Ronda Rousey’s star power at the time — I’m not sure the show happens without her — and to prop up the women’s evolution when it was a popular talking point around the company at the time after how unequally WWE had treated its women for years.

But here is why WWE needs to bring it back.

1. The women’s divisions — including NXT — are chock-full of fresh, top-level talent. So there is no shortage of matches to make across the three shows. Tiffany Stratton, Lyra Valkyrie, Kiana James, Jade Cargill and others are all new to a main roster that has established draws at the top. In NXT, you have Cora Jade, Roxanne Perez, Fallon Henry, Thea Hail, Gigi Dollin and Jacy Jane, all of whom should have no problem in the ring with the main roster stars.

NXT Women's champion Roxanne Perez is part of a deep women's division across WWE.

2. The depth of that talent has led to WWE using women’s legends less in the Royal Rumble, so fans should be happy to see a few if you bring them back for an Evolution show. Mickie James replied to Bayley’s tweet with “Not without Me!” and we still haven’t gotten a payoff to Trish Status turning on Lita.

3. WWE is doing a very limited number of matches on its premium live events — anywhere from five to eight matches — so it’s not like there are a ton of opportunities for women to wrestle regularly on pay-per-view. So Evolution can either be a place to showcase a Nikki Cross, Candice LaRae or Chelsea Green on an extended card, or you build around the best five or six matches you can make.

4. There are plenty of avenues to make this work business-wise. WWE has been charging site fees for many of its premium live events, and adding another will surely be good for business. Maybe you do Evolution outside the U.S. in a city that will be happy to have WWE there. Perth, Australia embraced Rhea Ripley. Croke Park Stadium in Dublin holds 82,000, so build a weekend around Becky Lynch.

Maybe you couple it with a SmackDown or a Raw or have it on the Saturday before a normal PLE so your male stars perform in the city, too. WWE is contracted for four network specials on NBC. What if one of them is Evolution and you cross-promote it with the power of NBC’s stars behind it?

What could make WWE hesitant to put on an all-women’s show in the near future is the cloud of sexual assault and sex trafficking allegations against former owner and chairman Vince McMahon and the negative light Rousey put the company’s treatment of women in under McMahon in her memoir.

Maybe Evolution II is a way to push that this is a new era, but it could open those promoting it in the media to some very uncomfortable questions.

It would be a shame if the fear of that holds up Evolution coming back because the women’s division is stacked, over and talented enough to deserve it.

Cody Rhodes’ WrestleMania changing call

Brian Gewirtz, The Rock’s head writer, made a pretty stunning admission on The Ringer’s “Masked Man Show” that on the SmackDown in Alabama after this year’s Royal Rumble, Cody Rhodes was supposed to be more rah-rah about surrendering his WrestleMania 40 match against Roman Reigns to The Rock. Instead, he was the exact opposite.

“Cody, it was supposed to be, in some form, ‘Yeah, F–kin A! Go get ’em, Rock!” Gewirtz said. “You’re going to get your ass kicked, Roman! Let’s do this!’ and this uplifting promo. Instead, he looked like someone shot his dog in the face in the parking lot. … Certainly, on paper, and I don’t blame Cody for that, he’s real and one of the realest people I’ve ever met.

The Rock and Cody Rhodes share a moment at the WrestleMania press conference.

“He said what he had to say in the promo, but you couldn’t mask what he was really feeling, and I think the fans felt that a lot. They felt like ‘he doesn’t mean a word of this. This is being forced for him to say.’ ”

Whether Rhodes not masking his emotions was on purpose or he just couldn’t keep himself from being rightly upset, it only increases my appreciation of his genuineness. The Undisputed WWE champion gave some insight into his feelings after finding out at the Royal Rumble that The Rock getting switched in was possible.

“I had to leave that room, head up, and make sure no one knew what could possibly happen,” Rhodes said on “Busted Open Radio.”

“One of the more difficult days I’ve had in the wrestling business. But also, how could you complain when you’re winning the Royal Rumble, when you’re pointing at the sign?”

🚨Just In:🚨 @CodyRhodes reveals on #bustedopen247 when he learned about the main event of WrestleMania 40 and how he reacted.👀👀👀 @davidlagreca1 @bullyray5150 @TheMarkHenry pic.twitter.com/Mc86xLs31N — SiriusXM Busted Open (@BustedOpenRadio) May 20, 2024

Rhodes, in his own way, rightly protested being fake happy about his moment being taken away, put the power in the hands of the people and won. It only adds to the completion of this story.

The 10 Count

While his match with Gunther was the main event of Raw, all “Main Event” Jey Uso does is lose big matches now. The pop when he does finally break through will be something, but it leaves me feeling we are headed for Gunther and Nia Jax as our respective King and Queens of the Ring.

The right call Gunther and Randy Orton is gonna be a classic #WWERaw pic.twitter.com/O8L3fFYFjI — Vick (@Vick_8122) May 21, 2024

Don Callis’ interest/recruitment of Orange Cassidy is potentially one of the most under-the-radar stories if it leads to a character change for Cassidy.

I know why WWE did it, and adding Jade Cargill’s daughter into the mix made it make more sense. But I was completely buying Jax swung the chair to bait Cargill into a DQ but leaving her back wide open help. At least it turned the heat up on their rivalry and opened the door for a fun rematch. Now, does Cargill’s emotion toward Jax cost partner Bianca Belair in the Queen of the Ring semifinals?

Paul Heyman is in a no-win situation. Either Solo is lying to him or Roman Reigns is no longer answering the Wise Man’s calls.

Paul Walter Hauser has entered MLW’s Battle Riot, with the winner getting a match with world champion Satoshi Kojima as the Emmy winner’s quick assent up the wrestling ladder continues. MLW president Court Bauer is someone who just might have him win the thing knowing how much attention that would bring to his company.

If finally defying and fighting back against Chad Gable — likely Saturday in Saudi Arabia, though I wish it was built even longer — gives a less pushover and goofy Otis along with Gable as a heel, it will truly be an A+ job by WWE.

I’m very curious about what Kyle O’Reilly’s role — outside of being Adam Copeland’s backup — turns into during this House of Black feud. Someone suggested to me he looks ready to turn heel. If he does, does he get folded back into the Undisputed Kingdom?

My lord, did this Hook-Chris Jericho storyline need some floral shirt Samoa Joe energy! If there is anyone’s learning tree Hook needs, it’s Joe and not Jericho in this story.

Matt Justice may have taken the bump of the week — through a table, off a balcony — during his wild match against Mads Krugger at MLW’s Fury Road.

Take the plunge like @Thrashjustice ! Watch #MLW FURY ROAD Mads Krugger vs. Matt Justice. 📺Stream Full show for FREE: https://t.co/kimoXFzqYN pic.twitter.com/VIXFA7cIVi — MLW (@MLW) May 19, 2024

Finally, got around to seeing “Iron Claw”, which is a fine film that balances the good and bad of the wrestling business while explaining enough that one wouldn’t have to be a fan to feel the gravity of the Von Erich’s tragic story. Some of the scenes that hit the most were seeing the pain grow in Maura Tierney’s (Dori Von Erich) face after the deaths of her sons.

Wrestler of the Week

Willow Nightingale, AEW

Feuding with Mercedes Moné has allowed Nightingale to complete her evolution from the overly enthusiastic competitor who is over because of her energy, smiles and in-ring acumen to someone with some bite and overwhelming confidence in herself that the audience now has in her.

It started with a feud with Julia Hart and now the 30-year-old Long Island native looked and sounded every bit a champion and star during their contract signing on Dynamite. Their TBS championship match at Double or Nothing feels less than a forgone conclusion, now.

Social Media Post of the Week

View this post on Instagram A post shared by John Silver (@silvernumber1)

Match to Watch

Young Bucks, Kazuchika Okada, Jack Perry vs. Bryan Danielson, Darby Allin, FTR in Anarchy in the Arena at AEW Double or Nothing (Sunday, 8 p.m., Bleacher Report, Triller)

AEW’s Anarchy Arena matches have always been a ton of fun and it will be pretty intriguing what Darby Allin — even if banged up — pulls out for this. This is the first true act of the biggest story in AEW right now as the new Elite tries to “save” the company nWo-style. If done right, this should build some individual feuds and likely include one big surprise to advance a storyline AEW has invested a lot into.

Share this article:

an image, when javascript is unavailable

‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ Season 2 Trailer: It Takes a Killer to Catch a Killer

By Lexi Carson

Lexi Carson

HBO’s ‘Industry’ Sets Season 3 Premiere (TV News Roundup) 6 hours ago
Art Directors Guild Elects First All-Female Executive Board, Dina Lipton Named as President – Film News in Brief 9 hours ago
Seattle International Film Festival Awards Top Honors to ‘Sing Sing,’ ‘Gloria!’ 2 days ago

“ Criminal Minds : Evolution” is returning to Paramount+, and a new trailer has been released.

Season 2 of “ Criminal Minds: Evolution ” is set to release the first two episodes on June 6 with eight more episodes dropping weekly afterwards.

Popular on Variety

“Criminal Minds: Evolution” is produced by ABC Signature and CBS Studios, and stars Joe Mantegna, A.J. Cook, Kirsten Vangsness, Aisha Tyler, Zach Gilford, Ryan-James Hatanaka with Adam Rodriguez and Paget Brewster. Guest stars this season include Clark Gregg, Felicity Huffman, Paul F. Tompkins, Tuc Watkins and Brian White.

Watch the trailer below.

More From Our Brands

Matthew perry’s autopsy findings spur joint investigation by lapd and dea, salt bae has closed his nusr-et steakhouse in n.y.c., angel reese joins dc power soccer ownership group, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, the rookie and will trent won’t return until 2025 — but here’s the good news, verify it's you, please log in.

Share full article

Supported by

Why a New Yorker Story on a Notorious Murder Case Is Blocked in Britain

The article challenges the evidence used to convict Lucy Letby, a neonatal nurse, of multiple murders last year, and has led to a debate about England’s restrictions on trial reporting.

A large television screen broadcasts a woman’s picture as a man looks on near a camera and other equipment.

By The New York Times

The New Yorker magazine published a 13,000-word article on Monday about one of Britain’s biggest recent criminal trials, that of the neonatal nurse Lucy Letby, who was convicted last year of the murder of seven babies .

The article, by the staff writer Rachel Aviv, poses substantial questions about the evidence relied on in court. And it raises the possibility that Ms. Letby, vilified in the media after her conviction, may be the victim of a grave miscarriage of justice.

But, to the consternation of many readers in Britain, the article can’t be opened on a regular browser there, and most news outlets available in Britain aren’t describing what is in it.

The New Yorker deliberately blocked the article from readers in Britain because of strict reporting restrictions that apply to live court cases in England. A publication that flouts those rules risks being held “in contempt of court,” which can be punished with a fine or prison sentence.

Neither The New Yorker nor its parent company, Condé Nast, responded to requests for comment on Thursday. Earlier in the week, a spokesperson for the magazine told Press Gazette , the British trade publication, “To comply with a court order restricting press coverage of Lucy Letby’s ongoing trial, The New Yorker has limited access to Rachel Aviv’s article for readers in the United Kingdom.”

Under English law, restrictions apply to the reporting of live court proceedings, to prevent a jury’s being influenced by anything outside the court hearing. After Ms. Letby’s sentencing in August last year, those restrictions were lifted. But they were reimposed in September, when the public prosecutor for England and Wales announced that it would seek a retrial on one charge of attempted murder on which the jury had not been able to reach a verdict. “There should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings,” the prosecutor stated. The retrial is set to begin in June.

Ms. Letby has requested permission to appeal her convictions. After a three-day hearing last month, a panel of judges at the Court of Appeal said it would deliver a decision on that request at a later date .

In Britain, those trying to read the New Yorker article on internet browsers are greeted by an error message: “Oops. Our apologies. This is, almost certainly, not the page you were looking for.” But the block is not comprehensive: The article can be read in the printed edition, which is available in stores in Britain, and on The New Yorker’s mobile app.

The questions about its availability in Britain have prompted a debate around England’s reporting restrictions, their effectiveness and their role in the justice system.

Speaking in Parliament on Tuesday, David Davis, a Conservative Party lawmaker and former cabinet minister, questioned whether the restricting of reporting might, in this instance, undermine the principle of open justice, which allows the public to scrutinize and understand the workings of the law.

“The article was blocked from publication on the U.K. internet, I understand because of a court order,” Mr. Davis said. “I am sure that court order was well intended, but it seems to me that it is in defiance of open justice.”

He was able to raise the issue because he has legal protection for comments made in the House of Commons under what is known as parliamentary privilege . Media organizations have a more limited form of protection, known as qualified privilege, to accurately report what is said in Parliament.

In his response to the question from Mr. Davis, Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, said: “Court orders must be obeyed, and a person can apply to the court for them to be removed. That will need to take place in the normal course of events.”

Mr. Chalk added: “On the Lucy Letby case, I simply make the point that juries’ verdicts must be respected. If there are grounds for an appeal, that should take place in the normal way.”

The Evolution of CVS Health: a Brand Identity Analysis

This essay about the CVS Health logo analyzes its evolution and significance within the healthcare industry. It explores how the logo reflects CVS’s transition from a local pharmacy to a comprehensive healthcare provider, symbolizing its commitment to accessibility, innovation, and consumer well-being. The logo’s design elements, such as its bold colors and heart symbol, convey trust, reliability, and a focus on holistic health. As CVS continues to expand its services and adapt to changing healthcare needs, its logo serves as a visual representation of its values and dedication to improving community health.

How it works

In the vast landscape of healthcare, the CVS Health logo stands as a symbol of evolution and innovation. Its journey from a corner pharmacy to a comprehensive healthcare provider mirrors the transformations within the industry itself. Understanding the significance of its logo requires delving into the company’s history, values, and commitment to health and wellness.

The CVS Health logo, with its distinctive blend of bold letters and vibrant colors, embodies the company’s mission to provide accessible and affordable healthcare solutions.

The iconic red and white colors evoke a sense of trust and reliability, reflecting CVS’s role as a cornerstone of community health. The stylized heart symbol reinforces the company’s focus on caring for its customers’ well-being, both physically and emotionally.

One cannot discuss the CVS Health logo without acknowledging the company’s strategic evolution. What began as a chain of retail pharmacies has expanded into a multifaceted healthcare enterprise, offering services ranging from prescription fulfillment to chronic disease management. The logo serves as a visual reminder of CVS’s journey from a local drugstore to a national healthcare powerhouse, symbolizing its adaptability and commitment to meeting the evolving needs of consumers.

Beyond its aesthetic appeal, the CVS Health logo carries deep symbolic meaning. It represents the convergence of traditional pharmacy services with modern healthcare solutions, embodying the company’s forward-thinking approach to wellness. The incorporation of the word “Health” into the logo signals CVS’s expansion beyond its roots in pharmaceuticals to encompass a broader spectrum of health services, including preventive care and wellness initiatives.

Moreover, the CVS Health logo serves as a beacon of accessibility in an increasingly complex healthcare landscape. Its simplicity and clarity resonate with consumers of all backgrounds, communicating CVS’s dedication to making healthcare more approachable and understandable. Whether through in-store experiences or digital platforms, the logo serves as a unifying symbol of the company’s commitment to serving as a trusted partner in health.

In conclusion, the CVS Health logo is far more than a mere emblem; it is a visual testament to the company’s evolution and values. Through its bold design and symbolic elements, the logo encapsulates CVS’s journey from a neighborhood pharmacy to a comprehensive healthcare provider. As the company continues to innovate and expand its offerings, the logo will undoubtedly remain a powerful symbol of its commitment to improving the health and well-being of communities across the nation.

Cite this page

The Evolution of CVS Health: A Brand Identity Analysis. (2024, May 21). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/the-evolution-of-cvs-health-a-brand-identity-analysis/

"The Evolution of CVS Health: A Brand Identity Analysis." PapersOwl.com , 21 May 2024, https://papersowl.com/examples/the-evolution-of-cvs-health-a-brand-identity-analysis/

PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Evolution of CVS Health: A Brand Identity Analysis . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-evolution-of-cvs-health-a-brand-identity-analysis/ [Accessed: 22 May. 2024]

"The Evolution of CVS Health: A Brand Identity Analysis." PapersOwl.com, May 21, 2024. Accessed May 22, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/the-evolution-of-cvs-health-a-brand-identity-analysis/

"The Evolution of CVS Health: A Brand Identity Analysis," PapersOwl.com , 21-May-2024. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-evolution-of-cvs-health-a-brand-identity-analysis/. [Accessed: 22-May-2024]

Don't let plagiarism ruin your grade

Hire a writer to get a unique paper crafted to your needs.

Our writers will help you fix any mistakes and get an A+!

Please check your inbox.

You can order an original essay written according to your instructions.

Trusted by over 1 million students worldwide

1. Tell Us Your Requirements

2. Pick your perfect writer

3. Get Your Paper and Pay

Hi! I'm Amy, your personal assistant!

Don't know where to start? Give me your paper requirements and I connect you to an academic expert.

short deadlines

100% Plagiarism-Free

Certified writers

IMAGES

Evolutions of media essay
📚 Free Essay Example on Social Media Evolution
SOLUTION: Timeline of media evolution
TIMELINE OF MILESTONE IN MEDIA EVOLUTION
Evolution of media
The Evolution of Media

VIDEO

Media Evolution From Creator to Media Compan. #podcast #mediaevolution #youtubeshorts #shorts #viral
Abstract Essay Volume 282 Evolution by Daniel Lucas
Facebook to meta: A social media evolution
The Evolution of Tradition Media to New Media
The Evolution of Ezio #shorts #assassinscreed
Evolution of Media

COMMENTS

1.3 The Evolution of Media
Key Takeaways. Media fulfills several roles in society, including the following: entertaining and providing an outlet for the imagination, educating and informing, serving as a public forum for the discussion of important issues, and. acting as a watchdog for government, business, and other institutions.
1.4: How Did We Get Here? The Evolution of Media
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.
Media Chronicles: The Evolution of Modern Media » Britannica
A few decades later, the internet forever changed how we access and disseminate information. Then, the rise of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram in the early 2000s further accelerated the pace of change. Statista. In many ways, this was only the beginning. Today's advancements in technology, including generative AI ...
A Short History of Media and Culture
2. A Short History of Media and Culture. Learning Objectives. Discuss events that impacted the adaptation of mass media. Explain how different technological transitions have shaped media industries. Until Johannes Gutenberg's 15th-century invention of the movable type printing press, books were painstakingly handwritten, and no two copies ...
PDF Theories of Media Evolution
Theories of Media Evolution • 3 these media an official birthday, although as we will see shortly there is typically ambiguity, controversy, and a delay of varying numbers of years between technical invention and social utilization. We shall see that the history of innovation brings to light many examples of considerable con-
16.1 Changes in Media Over the Last Century
Traditional media encompasses all the means of communication that existed before the Internet and new media technology, including printed materials (books, magazines, and newspapers), broadcast communications (TV and radio), film, and music. New media, on the other hand, includes electronic video games and entertainment, and the Internet and ...
Media Evolution: Emergence, Dominance, Survival, and Extinction in the
The first section reviews the relationships between ecology, evolution, and media and analyzes the differences from other approaches, such as media archaeology and media history. The second section proposes a media evolution model based on identifying three phases: emergence, dominance, and survival/extinction.
What Media Evolution Is: A Theoretical Approach to the History of New
The article suggests an explanation for the emergence of new media. Media are not merely the consequence of technical inventions, but derive from a two-stage process of inventing and 'social institutionalizing'. The technical invention just improves on the old media: for example, Gutenberg improved writing, films improved older optical media and wireless improved wired telegraphy. In the next ...
9.3: The Evolution of the Media
The evolution of the media has been fraught with concerns and problems. Accusations of mind control, bias, and poor quality have been thrown at the media on a regular basis. Yet the growth of communications technology allows people today to find more information more easily than any previous generation. ... and daily papers sprang up in large ...
Media Evolution: Emergence, Dominance, Survival and Extinction in the
Constructing a model of media evolution means going beyond the concepts used up until now—such as Bolter and Grusin's remediation—to integrate into a single framework analytical categories such as emergence, adaptation, survival, and extinction. In this theoretical context, the article pays particular attention to the simulation processes ...
11.2 The Evolution of the Internet
A less-fortunate company, eToys.com, got off to a promising start—its stock quadrupled on the day it went public in 1999—but then filed for Chapter 11 "The Internet and Social Media" bankruptcy in 2001 (Barnes, 2001). One of these startups, theGlobe.com, provided one of the earliest social networking services that exploded in popularity.
On the relativity of old and new media: A lifeworld perspective
By turning to reflections and discourses surrounding everyday experiences made with media throughout time, we are able to determine how 'oldness' and 'newness' of media are - as Natale (2016a: 588) put it - 'constantly renegotiated' among different media users in contemporary societies.To develop our argument, we propose to use the concept of media ideology, which allows us to ...
Traditional Media vs. New Media Essay: Evolution of Old to New Media
Logan (2010, p. 4) claims that new media "incorporate two-way communication" and are associated with computing (e.g. the Internet, social networks), while old media do not require computing (radio, print newspapers, TV). This standpoint can be easily illustrated. Thus, newspapers and television are rather one-way sources of information.
The Evolution of Social Media: How Did It Begin, and Where Could It Go
The evolution of social media has been fueled by the human impulse to communicate and by advances in digital technology. It is a story about establishing and nurturing personal connections at scale. According to Merriam-Webster open_in_new, social media is defined as "forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking ...
Media History
Media and History. Brendan Dooley, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition), 2015. Introduction. Media history considers the historical dimension of communicating information, knowledge, and values to a broad audience. Although the term 'media' came into use only in the 1920s to denote the structures of such communication, media history takes ...
(PDF) Media studies: Evolution and perspectives
Media studies: Evolution and perspectives. March 2010; Bodhi An Interdisciplinary ... This essay is an attempt to address these fundamental concerns underlying the discourse on media studies as an ...
How Did We Get Here? The Evolution of Media
The Evolution of Media. Learning Objectives. Discuss events that impacted the adaptation of mass media. Explain how different technological transitions have shaped media industries. ... In an essay about television's effects on contemporary fiction, writer David Foster Wallace scoffed at the "reactionaries who regard TV as some malignancy ...
First the Media, Then Us: How the Internet Changed the ...
Today, as the audience is restlessly making its own media, it is also learning fast that with new media come new rules and new exceptions. Media confer power on the formerly passive audience, and with that comes new responsibilities. This was made startlingly evident in the wake of the April 15, 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.
1.3 The Evolution of Media
1.3 The Evolution of Media In 2010, Americans could turn on their television and find 24-hour news channels as well as music videos, nature documentaries, and reality shows about everything from hoarders to fashion models. ... In the 1830s, the major daily newspapers faced a new threat from the rise of penny papers, which were low-priced ...
The Evolution of Media Essay
The Evolution of Media Essay. Good Essays. 1312 Words. 6 Pages. Open Document. The media has become a comfortable staple and commodity to the global lives it touches inadvertently and significantly. But what is this incontrovertible influence?
Mass media: Essay on the Evolution of Mass media
Mass media: Essay on the Evolution of Mass media. This article provides information about the evolution of Mass media: The history of human communication and the development of speech can be viewed as one of the defining characteristics in the transition to human civilisation. The use of pictures and writing allowed communication to move beyond ...
The Evolution of Disneyland: a Historical Overview
Summary. This essay about Disneyland explores its origins and evolution, starting with its opening in 1955, influenced by Walt Disney's vision. It details the park's initial challenges, innovations, and expansion into a cultural icon that has impacted entertainment and pop culture globally. Highlighting technological advances and ...
The Evolution of the Media
The evolution of the media has been fraught with concerns and problems. Accusations of mind control, bias, and poor quality have been thrown at the media on a regular basis. Yet the growth of communications technology allows people today to find more information more easily than any previous generation. ... and daily papers sprang up in large ...
The Evolution of Isolationism in US History: a Comprehensive Overview
This essay about the United States' history of alternating between isolationism and global engagement highlights the nation's evolving foreign policy. From early caution against European entanglements to its role as a superpower, the essay traces key events and periods such as the Monroe Doctrine, World Wars, the Cold War, and recent shifts ...
The Origins and Evolution of UPS: A Historical Overview
This essay about United Parcel Service (UPS) highlights its evolution from a small messenger company founded in 1907 to a global logistics powerhouse. It explores key innovations, such as consolidated delivery, conveyor belts, and barcode scanning, which have driven UPS's success.
1.3 The Evolution of Media
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; it didn't matter whether a message needed to travel 5 or 500 miles.
Bayley's push for second WWE Evolution show comes at perfect time
Published May 21, 2024, 11:35 a.m. ET. Bayley is right about it being time for a second Evolution show. It's long overdue, but it could initially face a significant hurdle. The WWE women's ...
'Criminal Minds: Evolution' Season 2 Trailer Releases on ...
Paramount+. " Criminal Minds: Evolution" is returning to Paramount+, and a new trailer has been released. Season 2 of " Criminal Minds: Evolution " is set to release the first two episodes ...
Why a New Yorker Story on a Notorious Murder Case Is Blocked in Britain
The New Yorker deliberately blocked the article from readers in Britain because of strict reporting restrictions that apply to live court cases in England. A publication that flouts those rules ...
The Evolution of CVS Health: A Brand Identity Analysis
This essay about the CVS Health logo analyzes its evolution and significance within the healthcare industry. It explores how the logo reflects CVS's transition from a local pharmacy to a comprehensive healthcare provider, symbolizing its commitment to accessibility, innovation, and consumer well-being.

2 A Short History of Media and Culture

Technological Transitions Shape Media Industries

Share This Book

Margin Size

9.3: The Evolution of the Media

Learning Objectives

Print Media

New Media Trends

The First Social Media Candidate

Becoming a Citizen Journalist

Practice Questions

International Journal of Communication

Founding Editor

Founding Managing Editor

Managing Editor

Managing Editor, Special Sections

Editorial Board

Media Evolution: Emergence, Dominance, Survival and Extinction in the Media Ecology

11.2 The Evolution of the Internet

The History of the Internet

The Building Blocks of the Internet

You’ve Got Mail: The Beginnings of the Electronic Mailbox

Hypertext: Web 1.0

For Sale: The Web

The Early Days of Social Media

How Did We Get Here? The Late 1970s, Early 1980s, and Usenet

GeoCities: Yahoo! Pioneers

Key Takeaways

Traditional Media vs. New Media

Introduction

The Evolution of Traditional to New Media

Reference List

The Evolution of Social Media: How Did It Begin, and Where Could It Go Next?

Social Media: End Users and Businesses

A Brief History of Social Media

Pre-internet Roots

The Launch of Social Sites

Modern Social Media Outlets

The End-User Experience

The Business Experience

Taking Advantage of Social Media’s Popularity

The Importance of Engagement and Integration

Personifying the Company

The Future of Social Media

Premium Social Media Services

Social Media Video

What’s Next for Social Media?

Take Your Next Brave Step

1.2 How Did We Get Here? The Evolution of Media

A Brief History of Mass Media and Culture

Technological Transitions Shape Media Industries

Why Media? What Do Media Do for Us?

Key Takeaways

Top 10: Science in 2016

The Internet Gives Television a Second Act

Music: Reworked, Redistributed, and Re-Experienced Courtesy of the Internet

Related publications

Download Kindle

The Music Industry in an Age of Digital Distribution

OpenMind Books

About OpenMind

Quote this content

1.3 The Evolution of Media

What Do Media Do for Us?

A Brief History of Mass Media, Technology, and Culture

Technological Transitions Shape Media Industries

Share This Book

The Evolution of the Media

PRINT MEDIA

LINK TO LEARNING

NEW MEDIA TRENDS

GET CONNECTED!

CHAPTER REVIEW

Share This Book

Chapter 1: Media and Culture

What Does Media Do for Us?

A Brief History of Mass Media and Culture

Technological Transitions Shape Media Industries

Key Takeaways

Recommended