Communication Fundamentals
Historical Perspectives on
Communication Technology
Newspapers
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The first Newspaper produced, was the Public Occurrences, Both Foreign and Domestic, appearing in 1690
In North America.
Early growth suffered from very low literacy rates and the lack of cash flow among the bulk of the
population
The Industrial Revolution, brought money for workers and improved mechanized printing processes.
In the 1830’s, lower newspaper prices and the practice of having advertisers pay to the paper(s) to
advertise, encouraged a significant growth.
Newspapers then made the transition from the wealthy elite to the mass medium serving a wider range of
consumer from the mid 1830’s through the Civil War era
There was a increase in demand for news during the Spanish and Civil Wars, thus creating the modern
journalistic approach to reporting news.
This time period also saw the growth of the newspaper firm expand rapidly, as was the newspaper
circulation. More and more newspaper were providing readers with outrageous stories, as well as war
reports.
Even though the number of newspaper firms would level of during the 20th century, those that survived,
saw readership and circulation continue to rise.
Around the early 1950’s, morning newspaper circulation doubled, despite a 16% drop in the number of
daily newspapers.(source: Technology Futures INC)
Newspapers Continued
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Newspaper operations in North America are largely concentrated to a few companies. Among more than
2300 daily newspapers operating in 2007, 24% of the total circulation was generated by top 20 newspaper.
(source: Technology Futures INC) Larger media outlets, control the smaller one. It is not un-characteristic
for one company to own three-five smaller brands
Newspapers advertising revenues have dropped over the last 50 years, dating back to the growth of
broadcast television, than cable, and now Internet
Telephone
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Alexander Graham Bell became the first to transmit speech electronically, that is, to use the telephone, in
1876.
The first exchange connected three company offices in Boston beginning on May 17, 1877, reflecting a
focus in business rather than residential use during the telephone’s early decades.
Hotels became early adopters of telephones as they sought to reduce the cost of employing human
messengers
After 1894, non-business telephone use became ordinary, in part, because business use lowered the cost
of telephone service.
WIRELESS TELEPHONE
Guglielmo Marconi sent the first wireless data messages in 1895.
The growing popularity of telephony led many to experiment with Marconi’s radio technology as another
means for interpersonal communication.
By the 1920s, Detroit polices cars had mobile radiophones for voice communication
he Bell system offered radio telephone service in 1946 in St. Louis. Bell engineers divided reception areas
into cells in 1947, but cellular telephones that switched effectively among cells as callers moved did not
arrive until the late 1970s
The first call on a portable, handled cell phone occurred in 1973.
By the end of 2008, 25 million mobile wireless subscribers owned mobile devices with high-speed internet
access plans including laptop computers and smartphones. The sale of wireless handsets is the “world’s
largest consumer electronic market”.
Telephone Cont.
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ownership of cell phones among teenagers and adults under 30 years of age was “nearly ubiquitous” in
2009. Fifty-eight percent of children aged 12 had cell phones; among teens, it was 75%, and among 18-29
year olds it was 93%. (source: Technology Futures Inc)
Consolidation left the industry dominated by four national carriers (AT&T, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and
Verizon Wireless) that served 93% of American wireless phone subscribers, while Canda’s national carriers
consisted of Bell and Rogers
major carriers purchased smaller regional companies to consolidate network coverage into national
services. (Telus, Fido, Koodoo)
The availability of a variety of video forms (television shows, news, sports and MTV videos) on phones
helped push mobile video revenues
The average mobile consumer (teens) found that 35% talked on mobile phones each day (source: Stats.
Can) in 2002. That number spiked by 2009, stating that 74% on teens talked/texted on their phones eaach
day, using upwards of 724 minutes per month (not including texting)
In 2002, 1.01 bilion texts were sent by the wireless consumer/month. By 2009, 19.4 billion texts /month
was the average.
The age group spending most of their time on the phone, was the demographic 18-24 year olds.
Motion Pictures
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In the 1890s, George Eastman improved on work by and patents purchased from Hannibal Goodwin in
1889 to produce workable motion picture film.
The Lumière brothers projected moving pictures in a Paris café in 1895
William Dickson, an assistant to Thomas Edison, developed the kinetograph, an early motion picture
camera, and the kinetoscope, a motion picture viewing system
A New York movie house opened in 1894, offering moviegoers several coin-fed kinetoscopes and allowed
larger audiences to simultaneously see the moving images, appeared in public for the first time in 1896.
In France in that same year, George Méliès started the first motion picture theater. Short movies became
part of public entertainment in a variety of American venues by 1900
Average weekly motion picture theater attendance increased annually from the earliest available census
reports on the subject in 1922 until 1930
After falling dramatically during the Great Depression, attendance regained growth in 1934 and continued
until 1937.
declines in the prewar years were followed by a period of strength and stability throughout the World War
II years. After the end of the war, average weekly attendance reached its greatest heights. After the
beginning of television, weekly attendance would never again reach these levels.
Much of the increase in the revenues of the box office came from increases in ticket prices and inflation,
rather than from increased popularity of films with audiences.
2005, the most frequent purchasers of film tickets fell in the 12 to 20 year-old bracket.