Historical development of world press
- Suman Acharya
Before the innovation of printing press
Before the
innovation of modern printing press, there was only the hieroglyphic writing.
Writing on clay tablet, on plank of wood etc were used to keep the record of
something. Innovation of printing press had created one of the quantum change
and revolution to create the way for mass communication. In fact, there was no
any means of mass media. Communication through drums beating, smoke signals,
street criers were used as the medium of communication. There was hand-written
book and other record of document on clay tablet, stone craving etc. In fact
there was no possibility of mass communication as appeared in today's world.
The evolution of modern printing press
Johannes
Gutenberg, innovator of modern printing press in 1456, had printed Bible
translating it into English. Gutenberg's invention marked the beginnings of a
communication revolution. However, the media was not powerful as modern
printing press but it was faster than previous hand-written system. It had
created the seed of further media technological development. As a result,
printing technology spread Europe and other
continent gradually. Books were started to publish in large number of quantity.
Slowly literacy rate was expanded, educational institution were started to
establish. The first press in England
was that of William Caxton who translated French document into English in 1476
and had done a lot for literature and other religious translations. The
effort of Caxton expanded into neighboring country of England. As a
result, the boom on book publishing was made success internationally.
Seed of newspaper sowed in England
The first
newspaper, The Oxford Gazette, was published in 1665 as official
newspaper in England.
But before this many other countries like Germany and other country had
already published the newspapers. In 1690, Public Occurrence daily was
published by Benjamin Harris, which published only one issue with more critical
issues to the government from Boston of America, which was quite critical to
the England
government. The whole territory
of USA was captured and
governed by England Empire in those times. So government imprisoned him, and
issuance of this newspaper was stopped. However, it was most important in the
history of newspaper publishing, which created the way for private newspaper
with public opinion although it was published only one issue. More and more
newspapers were established to publish. The first daily newspaper of England, The
Daily Courant, was published in 1702, which further inspired other country
to publish daily newspapers around the world. Gradually many newspapers
launched around the world.
American history of newspaper
Boston
News-Letter, the first true newspaper of America, was published in 1704 by
postmaster, John Campbell, who could mail newspaper without any charge as the
authority of post office. British stamp tax act imposed in 1765 to charge the
newspaper in its circulation. Slowly other newspapers were appeared in America but
daily newspaper appeared there when Pennsylvania Evening Post and
Advertiser appeared in 1783. However, America
was colony of Britain
until 1776. On those times, many political newspapers related to Tory
and Whig was competed each other but after the American Revolution
commercial newspapers were started to appear. Later America became the leader of world
journalism and started to advocate the freedom of speech and expression
including freedom of press. United States, the advocate of the world
press freedom, granted the absolute press freedom in 1791 by the amending the
Virginia bill of Right appeared in 1776 as "congress shall make no law
abridging the freedom of speech and expression including press………" but
there is various law like defamation, obscene, privacy, official secrecy that
are used to impose reasonable restriction for social responsibility. However
the state of the US
has given absolute or relative right for press freedom more or less than
federal government and it is still quite hardship for broadcasting media. As result,
many newspapers of various categories were appeared, and various technique and
strategy was adopted to sell newspaper largely.
The Penny Press:
In 1833, New
York Sun started its sell for a penny, which was published by Benjamin Day.
This was a significant price reduction when compared with the other New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia dailies,
which went for six cents a copy. Local happenings, sex, violence, features, and
human-interest stories would constitute the content of the New York Sun. Within six months, the Sun
achieved a circulation of approximately 8,000 copies, far ahead of its nearest
competitor. The gamble had paid off, and the penny press was thus launched. The
last of the major newspapers of the penny-press era that we shall consider
began in 1851. Slowly the competition in price reduction started to attract
wide range of audience.
Changes in
journalism were prompted by the success of the mass press during the 1833-1860
periods. The penny press brought such four changes, according to Joseph R.
Dominick (The Dynamics of Mass Communication):
- The basis of economic support for newspapers: As a mass circulation, newspapers attracted may advertisers in their newspaper, which started mainstay of financial resources for newspapers.
- The pattern of newspaper distribution: an organization of newspapers had changed its distribution patterns expanding it into as more city as it could. As a result many people of different area slowly got access to newspaper in cheap price
- The definition of what constituted news: During the era of Penny press, the pattern of news writing and its structure, formats, design was developed in attractive way. Before this, there was no fundamental establishment of news writing and its presentation.
- The techniques of news collection: as a result of penny press, the technique of news collection as fast as they could start with paying special attention to layout and design of newspapers which ascertained news value and component of news too.
Slowly the
required infrastructure for newspaper and magazine established. Roads were
built up, Rotary and Offset press appeared which enhanced the capacity of
print. Color publication was made possible. The numbers of newspaper increased
which made begun the era of completion. As result, era of yellow journalism in
newspapers appeared with intense competition. .
Yellow
journalism:
Yellow
journalism is started from early 1890's, which was incredibly sensational
journalism. At the beginning of the twentieth century, every industry had its
baron, and the most notorious-if not the greatest of the press lords was
William Randolph Hearst. Hearst specialized in buying up failing newspapers and
transforming them into profitable enterprise. In 1878, Joseph Pulitzer became
interested in journalism. He turned the St. Louis Post Dispatch into a
grand success and he bought New York World too. He obviously found a
formula for newspaper success, and his innovations are worth considering. He
attracted a mass readership by reintroducing the sensationalized news of the
penny press era into his paper.
Soon, Pulitzer
and Hearst were engaged in a fierce circulation battle as each paper attempted
to out-sensationalize the other. At first, Pulitzer got success to sell heavily
the New York Sunday World selling more than 300,000 newspaper covering
melodrama, disaster, sensational photograph, comic strip etc. Pulitzer employed
one cartoonist to make yellow kids particularly it featured bald-headed,
toothless, grinning kid, clad in a yellow saclike garment that represented
absolutely poor urban slum area and became very popular. On the other hand,
William Randolph Hearst was also expanding the circulation of San Francisco
Examiner and later he bought New York Journal in 1895 to make it
competitor of New York
world of Pulitzer. Then Hearst bought the cartoonist of Pulitzer of yellow kid
and started to cover more sensational reports, more comics and other
human-interest topics. Even the headline of Hearst was quite sensational. So
every citizen of New York
made comment on his presentation. Sometime he presented fake reports and
photograph to which became fate of journalism in that very time. Soon many
other American newspapers followed their tradition. So that kinds of
sensational presentation of journalism is now considered as yellow journalism.
Era of telegraphy and news agency
Samuel Morse had
developed the telegraph before 1840's, which expanded the possibility of
length, breadth and height of news coverage and other forms of reporting. As a
consequences of these technology, news and reporting were started to
transported from one place to another which reduced the time and cost of
reporting. As a result various news agencies started to use telegraphic system
to sell news like AFP, AP whereas AFP was established in 1835 in France and AP
established in 1841 but formally operated AP from 1848. Many other agencies
were established in different country, which widely helped to grow the concept
of timely reporting and short, sweet and simple style of news, which reduced
the expenditure of reporting too.
Development of film
In France, August
and Louis Lumiere projected brief motion pictures on a screen in 1895. However
Photographer Eadweard Muybridge had central vital role in this sequential
development of film when he presented the sequential pictures of horse and
rolled up it to make motion in 1885. Intense competition among inventors leaded
to advances in motion picture technology. In those times, no film as today was
developed; only the live picture of dramatic form could be presented, no
possibility of recorded film. In fact, there was no recording technology. Film
was only of little time; especially had little minutes. However, it is
necessary to know motion picture as a series of still pictures that capture
moving picture progressively different posture. So the seed of development of
photography had further created for photography, photojournalism and motion
pictures, which were made possible by the effort of Joseph Niepce and Daguerre
of France who experimented it from time to time in those time, before 1850's.
So the precursor of film is still picture, which was fully developed in this
era of 18 th and first half of 19th century.
Beginning of radio
The credit of
technological development of radio goes to Italian citizen, Guglielmo Marconi
who successfully sent the code wirelessly from one side of Pacific
Ocean to other. However, it wasn't got success of one person,
where many people had spent their time to experiment various system of wireless
technology. Nevertheless, it was used in First World War for military purpose
and also used in voyage to send the rescue offer from difficult situation of
ship. The first regular commercial broadcasting of radio was started by KDKA
Company from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on 2 November 1920. Radio
technology expanded around the world with various educational, informative and
entertainment culture. As a result, Edwin Armstrong started FM technology of
radio in 1935 working alone him but expansion was halted because of Second
World War, when all scientist and inventor used their mind to develop
cutting-age weapons. Then again the format of radio programs was made
attractive to compete with television. FM culture was developed fully after
1950's.
TV as historic medium
TV is most sophisticated
technology invented by various engineer. It was developed fully between two
wars. However, USA
started to broadcast TV from 1935, BBC commenced its broadcasting from 1936.
The expansion of TV halted during war. In those time, TV replaced radio as the
chief nighttime family entertainment medium after the end of war. It was
expanded around the world gradually, which mainly expanded more countries after
1950, shortly after Second World War. The color TV was made possible when FCC
approved the system of color TV signals in 1953. After the establishment of
various satellites in space, the cable TV and live broadcasting on TV made
possible which started to attract majority of people across the world. As a
result, TV became more potent medium in the context of global media emergent
after 1990. After 1950's, TV became the most important night partner of many
American and other accessible country too.
New communication revolution
After the
establishment of communication satellite, the possibility of great revolution
in media world across the country was set begin which created the expansion of
each media in each nook and corner of the world. The development of computer,
satellite and Internet has changed the scenario of mass media into hybrid form
of mass communication and interpersonal communication. Those incidences were
become successful during 1960's and 1970's. On the other hand, the seed of
global communication and information society was begun. The scope of all kinds
of mass media expanded across the country. Another cutting edge development in
media in this era is online media, which is being one of the fastest evolving
media around the world. Especially after the 1990's, global forms of all media
like TV, Radio, newspaper, Magazine etc have expanded and it's still continuing
around the world.
Water gate
scandal:
The
investigative story proved that the media is more powerful tool in the society
from the decade of 1970's. With the development of variety of technology
regarding to media world, the style, concept of reporting in advanced and
socially responsible way was further begun when an extraordinary examples of
investigative reporting from the 1972 was begun under the name of the Watergate
which disclosed the misdeed concerning the Richard Nixon administration of USA.
The two investigative reporters, Carl Bernstein and Robert Woodward of the Washington
Post started to reveal the election conspiracy of Nixon's White House Staff
who spent the money to know the secret of his opponents to make them failure.
Their relations dominated American news media exposing a conspiracy of election
and others to cover up a number of coverts illegal activities carried out
during the 1972 presidential election when Nixon won and became president.
After the revelation of his conspiracy, he was obliged to resign from
his post of president. Afterwards many investigative reporting around the world
is increasing which is some extent high in USA and is crucial for social
responsibility and public welfare too.
'The End...'
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