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  • Essay / How technology and convergence have changed the face of mass communication

    Mass communication is the process of disseminating information in a one-to-many model using a technological channel. The technology used to transmit information to large numbers of people is known as mass media. Examples of mass media are television, radio, newspapers and the Internet. Mass communication has characteristics with which it is associated. These characteristics are the mass media which is the technological channel of transmission, the presence of gatekeepers who scrutinize and criticize the information disseminated, delayed feedback, limited sensory channels and impersonal versus personal communication. (Campbell, Martin and Fabos, 2017)Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay It is quite clear that without mass media there can be no mass communication. Mass media has gone through many changes since its beginnings. Media convergence has been the most recent. This is the grouping of all the components of mass media, that is to say radio, television and the written press, under a common digital medium, for example the Internet. However, before media convergence was realized, mass media underwent a series of transformations. Mass media are mainly divided into print, radio and television; each of them has had their own development journey. Even before printing itself was developed, in most early societies, information and knowledge first circulated slowly through oral traditions. According to Campbell, Martin, and Fabos, what we call modern printing did not exist until the mid-15th century. In contrast, paper and block printing developed around 100CE and 1045 respectively. It was at this time in Germany that Johannes Gutenberg's invention of movable metal type and printing marked the beginning of the modern era of printing. (Campbell, Martin and Fabos, 2017)Related to the book by Dominick, Messere & Sherman, radio is the wireless transmission and reception of electrical pulses or signals by means of electromagnetic waves. The basis of radio was the theory of invisible waves published by Clarks Maxwell in 1855. It was in the late 19th century that physicists such as James Maxwell and Heinrich Hertz demonstrated the existence of electromagnetic radiation; they are essentially energy waves that travel through space. (Dominick, Messere and Sherman, 2012) These authors explain the process by which radio developed. Guglielmo Marconi had witnessed a demonstration of the mysterious radio waves while still at university, which inspired him to begin experimenting with radio transmitters and receivers. He finally managed to send a radio signal more than a mile away. The British granted him a patent for his wireless telegraphy system in 1896 and established his own company (The Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company) to manufacture and sell his new device. He worked extensively to strengthen his signals and was finally able to transmit a wireless signal across the Atlantic in December 1901, but only in Morse code, in the form of dots and dashes. (Dominick, Messere, & Sherman, 2012) The authors claim that no one had yet sent the human voice via radio waves, but Reginald Fessenden, a Canadian-born engineer, sought to do so. He built a high-speed alternator and tested it in 1906. Wireless operators on ships along theEastern Shore of the United States could hear his voice in their headphones as he explained to them what was happening and they were amazed. He then wished his audience a Merry Christmas and signed off, officially making it the first radio broadcast, marking the start of a new era for radio. (Dominick, Messere and Sherman, 2012) According to this book, in 1910 the most popular way to receive radio signals was to use a set of crystals that were cheap and easy to assemble, but which had one big flaw: it could not amplify weak incoming signals.signals. It was clear that if radio was to become a mass medium, it needed a receiver capable of boosting the level of weak signals, making radio easier to listen to. During his experiments with the so-called Flaming Valve, Lee De Forest found a solution. The Flaming Valve was a device that resembled a light bulb. It consisted of a plate and a thin wire and was used to detect radio waves. He discovered that when a small metal grid was inserted between the plate and the wire, it acted as an amplifier that amplified weak radio signals until they were easily detected. Putting two or three of these devices together could amplify signals millions of times better. He called this device the hearing and noted in his journal that he had "discovered an invisible empire of the air." Hearing brought radio into the electronic age and contributed greatly to improvements in transmission as well as reception. It was later transformed into the vacuum tube which formed the basis of all radio transmissions until the 1950s, when it was replaced by transistors and solid-state electronics. (Dominick, Messere, & Sherman, 2012) Television is described as the transmission of visual images by means of radio waves. (Dominick, Messere and Sherman, 2012) According to Dominick, Messere and Sherman, the founding of television dates back to 1817, with the discovery of selenium by Jacob Berzelius. In 1845, the American physicist Michael Faraday and Kerr had demonstrated in 1877 the effect of a magnetic field on polarized light. Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone led to the development, in the late 19th century, of the "magic mirror of fantasy" (as television was then called) through which distant events could be glimpsed. In 1879, The Punch, a British magazine, published a photo by artist and writer George Du Maurier that depicted a couple watching a tennis match remotely via a screen above the fireplace using the telephonoscope of 'Edison. It was the start of a new era for television. (Dominick, Messere and Sherman, 2012)The book tells us that in 1884, a German, Paul Nipkow, invented his famous scanning disk, the Nipkow Disk. It was a round disc with perforations arranged in a spiral. As the disk rotated, a beam of light passing through the perforations caused a rapid sweeping motion of light spots on an opposing surface, similar to the back-and-forth movements of the human eye on a printed page. (Dominick, Messere and Sherman, 2012) According to Dominick, Messere and Sherman, this is how television finally made its breakthrough: In 1923, John Baird in Britain and Charles Jenkins in America were both busy conducting experiments using mechanical scanning methods. which led to the transmission of shadows in 1925. In 1926 real images were transmitted over short distances and in 1927 the American company T&T demonstrated the transmission of an image over wire over a distance of 250 miles, then repeated by wireless. A step forward was taken in 1929 with the arrival of the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation)..