History Of Communication Essay -- essays research papers

Since the beginning of time, people have had the need to communicate with oneand some other. The most common fictitious character of communication is speech, but you could not talk tosomeone who lived 20 miles away. thusly written language was developed, people markedsymbols on paper, stone, or whatever was available. Then hundreds of years passed, andpeople who wanted to share their ideas with people had to do allot of writing, untilsomeone thought to make a writing machine. This machine is called the belief press.Gutenbergs designing of the printing press is widely thought of as the origin ofmass communication-- it marked Western cultures first viable method of disseminatingideas and infomation from a single reference book to a large and far-ranging audience. The story ofprint is a long and complax one. It may be too much to claim that print was the singlecause of the enormous social, political and psychological changes it is associated with.However, print did wield enormou s influence on every aspect of European culture. Somehistorians suggest that print was instrumental in bringing about all the major shifts inscience, religion, politics and the modes of thought that are commonly associated withmodern Western culture. Gutenberg foresaw enormous profit-making potential for a printing press that usedmovable metal type. Despite their rapid growth in numbers, secular scribes simply couldnot keep up with the commercial take in for books. Gutenberg also saw strong maketpotential in selling indulgences, the slips of paper offering written dispensation from sinthat the Church sold to fund crusades, new buildings and other projects devoted toexpanding its dominance. In fact, press runs of 200,000 indulgences at a time werecommon soon after the establishwritten versions became obsolete.There were many different innovations since the first hand operated printing press. The Stanhope press, which was widely used for many years, still used a hand-operatedscrew t o press print and paper, but it could print up to 250 sheets an hour. A considerableimprovement was the Colombian press. In this press, the typical screw method waseliminated, and replaced with powerful hand levers.&nbs... ...the negative side, wars are waged more easily, the scope of human meshing has beenextended along telephone lines, the multi-generational household has been broken-up asliving alone is no longer an experiment in isolation, and the time-space continuum seemsto be compressed faster than previously thought possible (Brooks, 1976). On the otherhand, the invention of the telephone has resulted in the rapid and diffuse dissemination oftechnical and scientific information, saved lives through golf links to emergency services, madepossible the modern city through telephonic connections, increased the speed and easewith which information changes place, and accelerated the rate of scientific andtechnical change and growth in industry (Brooks, 1976).Since the invention of the printing press, communication over distances hasbecome much more feasable. The invention of the the telephone, computer, and theinternet has made such an impact on our society. Now we are able to view tremendousmultitudes of information from our own living room. The history of moderncommunication is still ongoing, and leave alone continue to progress far into the future.