The Media History Project Connections Pages

The Media History Project

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	From ancient cave paintings to writing, the development of means for recording culture was a transformation that led, ultimately, to an unprecedented control over and organization of knowledge, power, and natural resources.

	According to media historians, ethnographers, and other social scientists, the transition from oral- to print-based culture had major impacts upon nearly every facet of life. With the proliferation of printing presses, literacy, and printed materials, the epistemologies, cultural and religious identities, and social and political organizations that had emerged during the Middle Ages were significantly transformed. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment -- and the later Industrial Revolution -- all share roots with the evolution of printing.

	Telegraph lines were built alongside the railroads -- a factor that helped establish standardized time zones across the U.S. Telegraphy also had a major impact upon journalistic conventions that had emerged during the late 1700s and early 1800s -- the "inverted pyramid" style of reportage is just one of the legacies of the era. Also, telegraphy was central to the modification of economic practices, as the price of goods became less dependent upon place and more dependent upon time.

	Initially, the telephone was thought to be a convenience only for businesses -- and the rich. Its threat to social custom lay in its ability to enable isolated people to converse -- without the watchful eyes of society, family, community and other socializing forces looking on.

	Journalism in the US began with pamphleteering, and its predominant narrative style has always been one of advocacy, rather than objectivity. In fact, the development of standards of objectivity is dependent, indeed, upon previous cultural and technological transformations that began with the print revolution. Resources on Photojournalism are available on the Photography Pages.

	During the late 1800s through the early decades of the 20th century, successive waves of immigrants arrived in the US, and found themselves mingling among new social groups. Advertising helped to create a new national identity, and played an important role in building a sense of community out of the melting pot. But, as Daniel Boorstin argues, these new communities were organized around consumption rather than based on cultural traditions -- and that, of course, changed everything.

	Although Gugliemo Marconi and Lee DeForest were pioneers in the development of the wireless technology that made radio possible, it was David Sarnoff of RCA who had the vision to transform the medium into a carrier for content with mass appeal.

	One of the earliest studies of the effects of media upon society, the Payne Fund studies, were conducted around film audiences of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Thus, with film -- as with radio -- there existed a general cultural concern that mass media did something to society. We can't understand that concern today unless we've taken the tour through the media leading us to film.

	Of all media, the recording industry demonstrates perhaps the most profound ironies, prejudices, and inspirations in its own history of segregation, collaboration, and synthesis of diverse peoples and diverse styles of music. There isn't a radio format that exists today that hasn't been the product of enormous cultural -- as well as technological -- transformation. Listen to rock and you'll hear Africa, the Carribean, the Mississippi River valley, Memphis, Western Europe, India, Asia, and, increasingly, the Pacific Islands.

	Comics and illustrations have long been a source for controversy regarding Art, Culture, and the democratization of information. They play a central role in building literacies visual and cultural, and are just now beginning to be taken seriously by scholars beyond the confines of popular culture (whose students have understood the importance of comics for a long time).

	In order to understand television we must study not only its roots in the industrial economy, we have to understand the social, political, and cultural significances of it, as well. According to research conducted over the last 40 years -- and contrary to popular beliefs about the potency of "the tube" -- the real question isn't "What does TV do to us?" but rather, "What do we do with television?"

	The pinnacle achievement of the military-industrial complex may, in fact, be the Internet. We have only the smallest idea where we're headed as a result of the changes and transformations enabled by global PC-to-PC communication. One thing's clear, however: the same debates, concerns, aspirations and fears that surrounded preceding media are becoming organized around computers ...

	As humans, we seem to anticipate some form of transcendance -- bodily, spiritual, cultural, political -- with the adoption of new media. Well, there are other media of transcendance -- some just for fun, some with long histories of cultural significance and legitimation. Try out these links to some of these "alternative" communication media!