Chapter 2 Media Technology Chapter Insights Mass communication is a technology based process Mass production of the written word became possible with moveable metal type Chemistry is the technological basis of movies Mastery of the electromagnetic spectrum led to radio and television Orbiting satellites and fiber optics have improved media efficiency Traditional media products and new products are emerging from digital technology Models help explain the technology driven process of mass communication Media Technology Technology is basic in mass communication If not for the technology of printing presses books as we know them wouldn t exist If not for the electronic technology television radio and the Internet wouldn t be Technology Dependence Mass communication Interpersonal communication Evolving Media Landscape o Printing Technology o Chemical Technology o Electronic Technology o Digital Technology 1 What do the four primary technologies of mass communication have in common 2 What industries have been built around the different media technologies Printing Technology With the invention of movable metal type in the mid1440s suddenly the written word could be mass produced The effect on human existence was profound Incorporating photographic technology with printing in the late 1800s added new impact to printed products Movable Metal Type Movable metal type Johannes Gutenberg Media People Gutenberg s Impact o Scholarship o Oral Traditions o Languages o Authorship o Commercialization o Pagination o Religion Industrial Revolution Effects Vellum o Pulp Paper Industrial Revolution Pulp fiction High Speed Presses Richard Hoe o Paper Reels o Typesetting Omar Mergenthaler Linotype Print Visual Integration Frederick Ives Halftone Steve Horgan National Geographic Henry Luce Do any media technology innovations since Johannes Gutenberg rival the transformational impact of his movable metal type What was the link between Gutenberg and the scientific revolution of the 1600s and 1700s And with the later Industrial Revolution How would your study habits be affected if your textbooks had no tables of content Or indexes What facilitated the integration of word driven and illustration driven media messages o 1 2 3 4 Chemistry Technology Historically photography is rooted in chemistry The distinct technology had come of age by the time of the U S Civil War creating a new kind of archival record When techniques were devised to integrate photography into Gutenberg legacy printing the mass media suddenly were in a new visual era Movies also drew on chemical technology but evolved along a separate path Photography Joseph Niepce Mathew Brady Laurens Hammond Stereoscopy Movies Persistence of vision o Cameras William Dickson George Eastman o Projectors Lumiere brothers 1 Explain this assertion Photography and words are not mass media but are essential for the media to exploit their potential 2 How does persistence of vision work in movies How about in 3 D movies Electrical Technology Electricity transformed people s lives beginning in the late 1800s with dazzling applications to all kinds of activities The modern music industry sprang up around these new systems for recording and playing back sound Radio and television both rooted in electricity were among the technologies around which new industries were created Electricity as Transformational Recordings Phonograph Thomas Edison Emile Berliner Joseph Maxfield Electromagnetic Spectrum Telegraph Samuel Morse o Wireless Heinrich Hertz Guglielmo Marconi o Television Philo Farnsworth Image dissector 1 How does the impact of Emile Berliner s invention of the metal recording disk compare with Gutenberg s printing press 2 What impact did the discovery of wireless communication have on society and globalization 3 How is persistence of vision employed differently in television and movies Current Technologies Satellite and fiber optic technologies in the late 1900s improved the speed and reliability of delivering mass messages These were back shop developments that were largely invisible to media consumers Plainly visible though was the related advent of the Internet as a new mass medium Orbiting Satellites Geosynchronous orbit Arthur C Clarke Telstar Uplink Downlink Back to Wires Landline Ed Parsons Cable television Fiber optic 1 Satellite television companies advertise they are available to homeowners anywhere in the United States so long as they have unrestricted access to the southern sky Why south 2 What technologies transformed the sleepy small town cable television industry beginning in the 1970s Digital Integration Digital technology has brought efficiency to almost every aspect of human lifestyles including products from traditional mass media companies A wholly new medium the Internet is built entirely on binary digital signals This newest media technology is melding the once distinctive delivery systems of many products from old line media companies Semiconductor Internet Origins Internet Media Convergence Digital Media convergence o Distribution Tim Berners Lee o Devices o Distinctions o Production o Democratization Media Counterpoints Technologizing The Written Word POINT Technological convergence is upending media infrastructures The end is near for media industries that once had secure niches but which are now in direct competition with each other on the Internet COUNTERPOINT Media Industries have always adapted to new technology and survived indeed thrived This adaptation process probably is occurring now although hard to perceive Cloud Computing o The Cloud o Apps App Cloud computing 1 How has the semiconductor transformed modern life And mass media too 2 Is Tim Berners Lee in the same league as Gutenberg Edison Marconi Farnsworth Technology and Mass Communication Theorists have devised models to help understand the complex and mysterious technology dependent process of mass communication But many models now more than 50 years old have been outdated by rapid changes in technology These changes added more complexity and mystery to how mass communication works Lasswell Model Harold Lasswell Channel Effect o Who says what o In which channel o To whom o With what effect Values and Limitations of Models Concentric Circle Model o Medium o Amplification Amplification o Message Controls Gatekeepers Regulators o In Process Impediments Noise o Deciphering Impediments Filter st 21 Century Models 1 How does the Lasswell model of mass communication differ from