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Period: 1400 to
The History of Mass Media
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1454
The Invention of the Gutenberg Press
Johann Gutenberg created the printing press in 1454, which caused literacy to spread throughout Europe. It made it so someone could produce or reproduce many of literary products like magazines and books, therefore a from of mass media using print. -
The Invention of the Camera
Nicéphore Niépce created the camera in 1816 and is said to also have taken the first camera image. This made it so visual history could be stored and people can now use visuals to express ideas. It also led to many forms of mass media today that include images or pictures. -
The Invention of Morse Code
Samuel F. B. Morse created the Morse Code in 1838. This made it so people could communicate in code using a series of dots, dashes, and spaces to represent the letters of the alphabet. -
The Invention of the Telegraph
Samuel F. B. Morse also created the telegraph in 1843. He used his recently developed Morse Code to send the first message from Washington D.C. to Baltimore: “What hath God wrought” This made it so people could actually communicate with Morse Code or text over long distances without having to wait a long time for the message to get to the receiver. -
The Invention of the Telephone
Alexander Graham Bell created the telephone in 1876. This made it so people could communicate verbally over long distances without being in the same room. The first telephone call happened just 3 days after he received the patent for it. -
The Invention of the Cinematographe & First Film
The Lumiere brothers created the Cinematographe in 1894 & showed first film in the same year. This made it so people could view moving pictures and was the beginning actual movies. They did it with an invention of their own called the Cinematographe, created before and around the same time. -
The Invention of the Radio
Gugilielmo Marconi created the idea and invention of the radio in 1895. He sent a wireless Morse Code message using his new wireless telegraph (first form of radio) that he made, to a different place over a kilometer away from where he was. -
The First Radio Broadcast
The first radio broadcast was in 1920 by the KDKA and it was about the Presidential election between Warren G. Harding and James Cox. It also was the first form of the actual modern mass media, it was something that many people heard without having to wait for the newspaper. -
The Invention of the Television (TV)
Philo Farnsworth created the first electronic television, while in San Francisco in 1927. His idea started at the age of 15, and it slowly grew until he finished the prototype at the age of 21. Over time, this made it so people could view the news and everything else, it also would go on so become one of the biggest forms of mass-media. -
The Invention of the Internet & First Home Computer
The first home computer was sold in 1976 by Apple. The Internet was actually invented in 1983 but was limited to certain groups of people. In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web (WWW) and was soon open to the public-use. People actually used the internet for many different things in the 1990s. The internet has become one of the most major forms of mass media and today’s daily life as a source of news, games, and lots of information.