WFOM 03 - History of Communication and Media

Writing for Online Media

Professor Nicholas Leshi

Class Blogs By Genre

CarsCity Culture on a Budget

College LifeFashionFiction

Food on a BudgetMediaMoviesMusic

Nightlife on a Budget Sports

Women’s Perspective

Class Blogs

Abandoned to Fiction by Tori Messanahttp://abandonedtofiction.blogspot.com/

Apollo’s Radio by Anthony Guerrierihttps://palmtreesandmelodies.wordpress.com/

The Beer Garden by Kaley Waltershttps://thebeergardenblog.wordpress.com/

Boozed on a Budget by Jillian Brookshttp://jillybean17.wix.com/boozed-on-a-budget

College Budget Eats by Michael Marandohttp://collegebudgeteats.blogspot.com/

Euroligen by William Slatteryhttps://euroligen.wordpress.com/

Class Blogs (continued)

Finger Flickin Good Flicks by Brian Wetzelhttps://bwetzelblog.wordpress.com/

The First Gear by Brendan Doranhttp://thefirstgear.com/

The Green Mile by Dan Greenhttps://thedangreenmile.wordpress.com/

Media About Media by Connor Ryanhttp://media-about-media.tumblr.com/

On a Whim by Adriana Calandrahttps://onawhimxx.wordpress.com/

Powered by Estrogen by Victoria Garrityhttps://poweredbyestrogen.wordpress.com/

Class Blogs (continued)

RAMSVERYOWN by Lourenzo Smithhttp://ramsveryown.blogspot.com/

Shake It Off, Shake It Off…Said Coach by Kristina Maksutihttps://kmaksuti.wordpress.com/

Sports Solver by Tom DiSalvohttps://sportssolver.wordpress.com/

Timeless Tunes by Vittorio Di Fuscohttps://oldsoultunes11.wordpress.com/

Twenty-Something Gentleman by Jesus Leonhttps://twentysomethinggentleman.wordpress.com/

“We are moving from a culture dominated by mass media, using one-to-many communication, to one where participatory media, using many-to-many communication, is becoming the norm.”

– Jill Walker Rettberg, Blogging


Cultural and Media Shift

“Rather than simply being a form born in opposition to mass media, blogs have aspects in common with many other forms of communication during the last centuries.”


Remediation

Oral Communication

Physical communication: Facial expressions, hand gestures, body movement

Verbal communication: Symbolic sounds, spoken languages and dialects

Oral Communication

One-to-One or One-to-Few

Communication limited to those within hearing distance or physical proximity.

Potential for dialogue, two-way communication.

Since it takes place in a finite moment, messages are subject to memory limitations and misinterpretation.

Oral Features of Online Writing

“Some aspects of blogging are very similar to oral cultures.”



Blogs are conversational and social.

Their tone tends to be less formal and closer to everyday speech than is the general tone of print writing.


Blogs are constantly changing.

Blogs can be and frequently are edited, with corrections being made after a post’s initial publication.


Most blogs allow comments.

A reader can ask questions or insert commentary.

If the original online writer does not directly respond, other readers might, either through additional comments or via

their own separate blog entries.


Blogs appear to be closer to the reciprocity of oral communication that Plato appreciated than to the

unresponsiveness of traditional writing. Plato wrote dialogues, and he praised dialogue as a form of

communication that is more valuable than dissemination, such as writing or a public speech given to a large audience.

Writing

“Writing is a technology itself, even without the printing press or the computer.”


Writing vs. Oral Tradition

Writing allowed things not possible in oral traditions.


Writing allowed things not possible in oral traditions.

Limitations of space and time are broken.

It has a sense of permanence, allowing the message to be studied and analyzed.


One strength of oral communication that was lost in writing, and later print:


One strength of oral communication that was lost in writing, and later print:

Oral communication has the potential for instant two-way dialogue. Writing and print are only one-way

communication. Any response, question, or additional comment is delayed by the time needed to write, reproduce, and/or distribute the written message.


Online writing has brought dialogue back to written communication.

Written Communication

75,000 BCE to 73,000 BCE: Pieces of ocher rock with geometric patterns found in a cave in South Africa.

The systematic pattern suggests that the markings represent information rather than just decoration.


Symbolic Writing: Drawings and symbols representing concepts and words,

eventually leading to phonetic writing, representing specific sounds.

Oldest cave paintings were discovered in France, dating back to about 30,000 BCE.


3500 BCE to 2900 BCE

The Sumerians develop cuneiform writing (pictographs written on clay tablets).

The Egyptians develop hieroglyphic writing.

The Phoenicians develop an alphabet, written from right to left.


1775 BCE

The Greeks use a phonetic alphabet written from left to right.


1400 BCE

Early Chinese writing discovered on bone dating back to about 1400 BCE.Oracle Bones and Shells featured inscriptions by spiritual leaders

answering divine questions.


500 BCE to 170 BCE

Papyrus rolls and early parchments made of dried reeds become the first known portable and light writing surfaces.


105 BCE

Paper, as we know it, is invented in China.


1st Century CE

The Codex, loose sheets of wood, paper, or other material bound together, usually with a cover, is invented by the Romans, and becomes the book format we are

familiar with today.

Print Communication

305 CE

China invents the first wooden printing press, symbols carved on a wooden block.

Print Communication

1455 CE

Johannes Gutenberg invents a printing press with metal movable type. (Clay movable type had been invented as early as 1049,

but it was not practical for mass printing.)

Print Communication

One-to-Many

Limitations of space and time are broken.

Only one-way communication.

It has a sense of permanence so readers can revisit it at anytime, studying and analyzing the message,

returning to the unchanging source multiple times if necessary.

Impact of Print on Communication

“(Print caused) the transformation from a society where spoken discourse was the norm to one where silent reading and writing was a main form of communication.”


Impact of Print on Communication

“Perhaps the radical increase of dissemination was the most obvious feature of print…Texts were spread throughout the world on a scale never before seen…It is easy to see the parallels to the radical increase in access to texts that has become possible with the Web.”


Oral and Print Features of Online Writing

Blogs are remarkable for combining aspects of both dialogue and dissemination.

Benefits of Print Communication

Standardization

Identification of errata, lists of known errors

Organization (table of contents, indices, alphabetization, categorization)

Data Collection(development of fields of science, history, and other studies)

Preservation

Amplification and Reinforcement of Ideas

New Literacies

“Another deep way in which print influenced our culture in general and communication in particular is the increase in literacy that occurred with the greater access to books.”


Definition of Literacy

Literacy is the ability to read and write.

New Literacies

Today, new kinds of literacy are developing as the general population is acquiring new skills and the ability both to read and navigate the Web and to publish its own words, images, videos, blogs, and other content.

The new literacies have been called network literacy, multi-literacies, digital literacy, and secondary literacy.

Online Media as New Literacy

The most recent medium, the Internet, is increasing the amount of reading and writing in which people engage, a form of textual practice.

Print vs. Electronic Media

In the 20th century, radio, movies, and television moved in upon print’s territory. It is a common idea that print privileges “focused attention” against broadcast media’s “channel surfing” and the Web’s “hypertexuality” with its link-following connectivity.

Impact of Print on Other Media

“As print became commonplace throughout the 16th century, a great shift occurred in our understanding of what literature and information was. When we learned to record and broadcast sound and, later, moving pictures, sounds and images became governed by the same logic of distribution and ownership as print had been.”


Print as a Commodity

Mass distribution

Critical analysis

Commercial value

Media as business

Electricity

The power of electricity has been studied since at least as early as the time of the ancient Greeks.

Thales of Miletos

William Gilbert

Benjamin Franklin

Luigi Galvani

Alessandro Volta

Electricity

1821

Michael Faraday invents the electric motor.

Electronic Communication

1831

Joseph Henry invents the electric telegraph.

1835

Samuel Morse invents Morse code and 8 years later invents the first long-distance electric telegraph line.


1876

Alexander Graham Bell patents the electric telephone.


1877

Thomas Edison patents the phonograph, which uses a wax cylinder as a recording medium for sound.

1887

Emile Berliner invents the gramophone, which allows repeat recording of audio.

Electricity

1879

Building on the work of others, such as Georg Ohm, Nikola Tesla, and Humphrey Davy, Thomas Edison invents the first long-lasting, practical light bulb.


1888

George Eastman patents Kodak film camera.

Mass Electronic Communication

1891

Thomas Edison files for a patent of a motion picture camera and a few years later introduces a projector,

using a perforated celluloid reel system developed by his employee William Dickson. The Kinetoscope allowed “motion pictures”

to be seen one viewer at a time.


1895

The Lumiere brothers, Auguste and Louis, held the first public screenings (to which they charged admission) of projected motion pictures.


1896

Thomas Edison’s improved Vitascope becomes the first commercially successful motion picture projector in the United States. The movie industry is born.


1894

Guglielmo Marconi improves wireless telegraphy.

1902

Marconi transmits the first radio signal across the Atlantic Ocean, from Cornwall to Newfoundland.


1912

The Radio Act of 1912 limits all private radio communications to what is now the Amplitude Modulation (AM) band (Medium Frequency).

Public radio broadcasting is marginalized to shortwave frequencies.


1927

NBC starts two radio networks (“Red” and “Blue”).CBS radio network begins.


1927

The Federal Radio Commission, established in 1926, and the Radio Act of 1927 regulate the use of the radio spectrum.


1927

The Jazz Singer is the first feature-length motion picture with sound. The “silent movie” era eventually gives way to the “talkies.”


1923

Vladimir Kosma Zworykin invents the first television (cathode-ray tube) camera.

1925

John Baird transmits the first experimental television signal.

1927

First television broadcasts in England.

1930

First television broadcasts in the United States. (Network TV starts in 1940.)


1934

Edwin Armstrong builds a Frequency Modulation (FM) transmitter for RCA.


1934

The Communications Act of 1934 establishes the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which replaces the Federal Radio Commission. The FCC is

charged with “regulating all non-federal government use of the radio spectrum (including radio and television broadcasting) and all interstate telecommunication

(wire, satellite, and cable), as well as all international communication that originates or terminates in the United States.”


1939

Hollywood starts producing commercially successful color motion pictures.


1940s and 1950s

The “Big Three” television networks are born (NBC, CBS, and ABC).A fourth, early major TV network, DuMont, ceased broadcasting in 1956.


1949

The birth of what would become cable television – Community Antenna Television (CATV) delivers programming to households via coaxial cables in areas that did not have strong individual broadcast reception.


1953

First color television sets hit the market.


1954

The National Educational Television (NET), a non-commercial, educational, public television network, begins.


1959

Xerox introduces the first photocopier machine.


1965

Sterling Manhattan Cable becomes the first urban underground cable system in the United States – no telephone poles or microwave antennas necessary.


1970

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) replaces NET.


1972

Home Box Office (HBO) begins distributing programming on a paid subscription basis.


1972

Magnavox Odyssey is introduced as the first home video game console.


1975

Cable TV pioneer HBO becomes the first television network to continuously deliver signals via satellite.


1975

Sony introduces Betamax, a consumer-level analog videocassette magnetic tape recording format.

Rival JVC develops a competing format, VHS, which dominates the marketplace.


1979

Japan develops the first cellular phone communication network.


1986

The FOX broadcast TV network debuts.

1995

The WB and UPN broadcast TV networks debut.

2006

The WB and UPN merge to form the CW broadcast TV network.


1999

The first Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) – Replay TV and TiVo – hit the market.


2010

Bundled service for television, telephone, and Internet becomes common


One-to-Many, Exponentially Multiplied

Limitations of space and time are broken, but a “second orality” is born. The need for written symbolism is minimized.

Mostly only one-way communication.

Live broadcasts vs. recorded broadcasts:Sense of permanence and critical analysis.

Portability1972 = The first portable personal audio cassette player, the StereoBelt, was invented in Italy. 1979 – Sony develops the popular Walkman in Japan.

Digital Revolution1979 = Standardized laser-discs (optical discs used for storing digital data) hit the market. 1982 – Compact-Discs (CDs) and CD players become commercially available.

1995 – DVDs (Digital Video Discs or Digital Versatile Discs) hit the market and quickly replace video-cassettes by consumer choice.

High Definition RevolutionIn the 2000s, high-definition flatscreens (and later touch screens) become common.

New Media Electronic Communication

One-to-One, One-to-Many, or Many-to-Many

Limitations of space and time are broken further, but a “new print culture” is born.Written symbolism returns to prominence, with modifications.

Mostly only two-way communication.

Flexibility and impermanence. Information overload.

Changes can be made often very quickly and easily.

The Online Timeline

1957 = After the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) launched Sputnik, the first artificial Earth satellite, the United States of America (USA) formed the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, later renamed DARPA) to establish an American military lead in science and technology

The Online Timeline

1964 = John George Kemeny and Thomas Eugene Kurtz at Dartmouth College design BASIC (Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), a high-level computer programming language meant to be easy to use, in order to provide computer access for non-science students.

The Online Timeline

1969 = ARPANET, the world’s first operational “packet-switching” (rather than “circuit-switching”) network, was launched, connecting four major U.S. universities: UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, University of California at Santa Barbera, and University of Utah. Designed for research, education, and government organizations, it provided a communications network linking the country in the event that a military attack destroys conventional communications systems.

Circuit-Switching vs. Packet-Switching

Circuit-switched networks (such as telephone calls) require dedicated point-to-point connections during communication. Packet-switched networks move data in separate, small blocks -- packets -- based on the destination address in each packet. When received, packets are reassembled in the proper sequence to make up the message.

The Online Timeline

1971 = Ray Tomlinson invented Electronic Mail (E-Mail) and also made the decision to use the "@" symbol to separate the user name from the computer name (which later became the domain name).

The Online Timeline

1973 = Work began on the Internet Protocol Suite, later to be called TCP/IP, a standard set of communication protocols to allow diverse computer networks to interconnect and communicate with each other.

1974 = Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn first used the term “Internet” in a paper about Transmission Control Protocol (TCP).

The Online Timeline

1975 = Ethernet was developed by Robert Metcalfe, allowing coaxial cable to move data incredibly fast.

1979 = USENET, a decentralized news group network, was created by Steve Bellovin.

1979 = IBM created BITNET (“Because It’s Time Network”), a “store and forward” network used for e-mail and groups using listserv (an electronic mailing list software application).

The Online Timeline1970s to 1980s = Companies began developing and marketing home personal computers. 1971 – Kembak-1, world’s first personal computer

The Online Timeline1970s to 1980s = Companies began developing and marketing home personal computers. 1973 – Xerox Alto, first computer to use a mouse, etc.

The Online Timeline1970s to 1980s = Companies began developing and marketing home personal computers. 1975 – Altair 8800, first to use a single-chip microprocessor

The Online Timeline1975 = Established to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800, Microsoft rose to dominate the home computer operating system market with MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System) in the mid-1980s, followed by the Microsoft Windows line of graphical-user interface operating systems.

The Online Timeline1970s to 1980s = Companies began developing and marketing home personal computers. 1977 – The “Trinity” began to popularize home computers.

Commodore PETApple IITandy Corporation’s TRS-80

The Online Timeline1970s to 1980s = Companies began developing and marketing home personal computers. 1978 – Atari 400 and Atari 800

The Online Timeline1970s to 1980s = Companies began developing and marketing home personal computers. 1979 – Texas Instruments’ TI-99

The Online Timeline1970s to 1980s = Companies began developing and marketing home personal computers. 1981 – IBM PC, inspired countless “PC clones”

The Online Timeline1970s to 1980s = Companies began developing and marketing home personal computers. 1982 – Commodore 64, bestselling computer of all time

The Online Timeline1970s to 1980s = Companies began developing and marketing home personal computers. 1984 – Apple Macintosh, first successful mouse-driven computer with graphical-user interface

The Online Timeline

1983 = The University of Wisconsin created the Domain Name System (DNS). This allowed packets to be directed to a domain name, which would be translated by the server database into the corresponding Internet Protocol (IP) number, assigned to each computer device. This made it much easier for people to access other servers, because they no longer had to remember numbers.

The Online Timeline1985 = GEnie (General Electric Network for Information Exchange) launched.

1994 = Prodigy (founded in 1984) became the first of the early-generation dialup services to offer access to the World Wide Web and to offer Web page hosting to its members

1993 = America Online (AOL) software was released for Microsoft Windows. (Previous versions for Apple Macintosh were released in 1989 and for DOS in 1991). Positioned by Steve Case as the online service for people “unfamiliar with computers,” it led to the mainstream embrace of the Internet, popularizing Chat Rooms, E-Mail, Message Boards, Instant Messaging, etc.

1989 = CompuServe (founded in 1969 as a computer support company) became the first online service to offer Internet connectivity.

The Online Timeline

1990 = The World Wide Web, invented by Timothy Berners-Lee, was implemented. It included a Web server to host a Web site that can be viewed through a Web browser. The original Web was entirely text-based. It was released to the public by CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) over the next few years.

The Online Timeline

1993 = Mosaic, the first widely available graphical Web browser and the first browser to allow embedded images, was released. Its clean, easily understood user interface, reliability, Windows port, and simple installation all contributed to making it the application that opened up the World Wide Web to the general public.

The Online Timeline

1995 = Marc Andreessen the leader of the Mosaic team, started his own company and launched Netscape Navigator, which became for a time the most popular Web browser. 1995 = Also influenced by Mosaic, Microsoft launched its own Web browser, Internet Explorer, leveraging it with its bestselling Windows operating system to market dominance.

The Online Timeline

1997 = Jorn Barger first used the term “Web log” to refer to online journals.

1999 = Peter Merholz was the first to use the abbreviated word “Blog” as a noun.

1999 = Evan Williams was the first to use the word “Blog” as both a noun and a verb.

1994 = Justin Hall created the first recognized online journal, Links.net

The Online Timeline

1998 = Google, an Internet search engine company, launched. It has since grown into a multinational public corporation, hosting a number of Internet-based services and products.

2003 = Google launches AdSense, matching ads to blog content.

The Online Timeline

1998 = Open Diary launched, offering online writers free hosting and an easy publishing solution.

1999 = A number of blogging platforms launch, including LiveJournal, Pitas, and Blogger. (Blogger would eventually be purchased by Google.)

2003 = WordPress launched.

The Online Timeline

1999 = The wireless technology called 802.11b, more commonly referred to as Wi-Fi, was standardized. Over the years that follow, this technology has appeared as a built-in feature of portable computers and many handheld devices.

The Online Timeline

1999 = The first Blackberry smartphone hits the market.

2007 = The first iPhone is sold.

The Online Timeline

2003 = Technorati, a blog search engine, launched, tracking over 150 million blogs.

2005 = YouTube, a video-sharing Web site, launched, revolutionizing the global distribution of user-generated video content.

2004 = Flickr, a photo-sharing Web site, launched.

The Online Timeline

2002 = Jonathan Abrams and Peter Chin launch Friendster, one of the first mainstream social networks.2003 = Brad Greenspan and others from Friendster’s parent company eUniverse launch MySpace, which became for a time the most popular social network site in the United States.2004 = Mark Zuckerberg and others launch Facebook, which revolutionizes the mass media potential for social networks. Facebook currently has more than one billion active users.2006 = Twitter, an easy-to-use social networking and microblogging site, launched.

The Online Timeline

2007 = Amazon introduces the Kindle, bringing electronic book (e-book) readers to the mainstream. Its proprietary e-ink technology, non-glare screen, wireless Whispernet delivery system, lightweight portable, long battery life, and large file storage space made it the market leader.

The Online Timeline

2010 = 4G Wireless Networks launched in the United States, allowing for high-speed connections to devices such as cell phones, tablet computers, netbooks, and laptops.

2010 = Apple’s iPad revolutionizes the tablet computer market.

New Literacies

“The most recent medium, the Internet, is increasing the amount of reading and writing people engage in, a form of textual practice.”


Assignments Due Next Class

Post at least one new entry in your blog.

Read your classmates’ blogs and comment where/when appropriate.

Read Chapter 3 of the required text, Blogging by Jill Walker Rettberg.

Read “From Scroll to Screen,” available on the class wiki.

WFOM 03 - History of Communication and Media

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