Pre-History
and
Ancient History
Communication
• Unique to Human Beings –
Separates us from “lower forms.”
• Symbolic Communication
• Abstraction
–Symbols for symbols: words
represent thoughts which
represent ideas/concepts
Communication
• The need to conquer time and space
• Cave paintings, Hieroglyphs,
Petroglyphs, Cunieforms, etc.
• Written records
– Once hand-written
– Only for the educated elite
– No incentive to be literate
Communication
• Smoke signals, drums, relay
runners
• Heliography
• Signal fires
• A tactical advantage in warfare
Communication & Technology
• Printing using the “fruit
press.”
• Johannes Gutenberg and
the Movable Type printing
press.
• The powered press.
The “Master Trends”
• Urbanization
• Industrialization
• Education (compulsory)
Electronic Communication
• “Electron” from the Greek
“Elektron” meaning Amber.
• Rubbing amber against
fabric created static
electricity.
Electronic Communication
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Galvani
Volta
Ampere
Oersted
Faraday
Maxwell
Watt
Electronic Communication
• Hertz
• Helmholz
Electronic Communication
• Coded Wired Communication
– Samuel Finley Breese Morse
– The Telegraph
– The “Morse Code”
Electronic Communication
• Coded Wired Communication
– Transatlantic Cable
– Cyrus Field
– Later used for telephone
Electronic Communication
• Non-coded Wired Communication
– Alexander Graham Bell
– Elisha Gray (Barnesville, Ohio)
– Filed competing patents on the same day
– Bell’s lacking a component making it
useless
• Telephone
Electronic Communication
• Coded Wireless Communication
– Guglielmo Marconi
– Wealthy Italian Entrepreneur
– AM, short distance, Morse Code
– Short wave, long distance, Morse Code
Electronic Communication
• Non-coded (voice) Wireless
Communication
– Reginald Fessenden
– Nathan B. Stubblefield
• AM Radio!
Electronic Communication
• Edwin Armstrong
– Using the Alexanderson Alternator
– FM radio
– Better Fidelity – No Static
Electronic Communication
• Needed Electricity!
– Thomas Edison – wires New York City
– Actually Direct Current
– Too dangerous!
Patent Wars and Problems
• American Marconi’s Worldwide
Monopoly
– Maritime
– David Sarnoff – telegraph operator
– The Titanic
World War I
• Government forces “cross licensing”
• Mobilize to win the war.
• Ending the patent wars
Who were the players?
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Bell = Bell Telephone
Gray = Western Electric
Edison = General Electric
Marconi = Radio Corporation of America
Morse = American Telegraph and
Telephone
Who were the players?
• United Fruit Company = maritime
shipping
• Westinghouse = railroad brakes(?)
Ready, set, RADIO!
• 8XK – the FIRST STATION doing what
we would call broadcasting.
• KDKA – the first COMMERCIAL
BROADCAST LICENSE.
• WEAF – the first commercial
MESSAGE.
The Golden Age of Radio
• RCA owns National Broadcasting
Company Red and Blue networks
(NBC)
• United Fruit Company creates a
network that eventually becomes the
Columbia Broadcasting System
• Mutual Broadcasting
The Golden Age of Radio
• RCA forced to divest the NBC Blue
Network
• Sold to Edward Noble of Lifesaver
Candy Company
• Forms American Broadcasting
Company (ABC)
The Golden Age of Radio
• Radio programming was “shows,” not
formats.
– Dramas, game shows, soap operas,
westerns, mysteries, comedies, variety
shows, etc.
– Established the programming types that
still dominate television.
…and then there was
Television…