Shanon Beck
Mrs. Miller
Honor's English IIIB - PA Distance Learning Charter School
April 12th, 2018
How has technology affected Journalism?
How has technology affected journalism? Journalism has been present throughout all of human history in one form or another, from ancient tablets to modern social media, but all of these forms of journalism have one primary concept in mind. They strive to spread news, or information to a group of individuals, or the general populous. This can be from the daily mundane facts, to the international news about current wars. This is only due to our technological advancements over the last two thousand years, in which we will examine that information in this paper.
In the case of ancient journalism, it was done through stone tablets centered at public squares to update the general populous about military victories or news from the leader of the said country. In the ancient Roman Empire these were the “Acta Diurna” according to Britannica, which was a state-controlled tablet updated daily. If we continue to examine the ancient forms of journalism, under the Tang Dynasty, we can see a state-controlled report giving to government officials called the “Bao”.
During these ancient periods technological advancement were often slow, due to the rise in religious conflict, and break down of many nations. This was reflected in journalism, as it stayed the same for hundreds of years, with the ancient forms of journalism lasting into the invention of the Printing Press in 1440 by Johannes Gutenberg, this brought forth the first “news-pamphlet” in the late 1400s in Germany, “this pamphlet was very sensationalized” according to (A Brief History of Newspapers), and often overplayed news, or made fake news in general.
The effects of the printing press were seen for hundreds of years with the invention of the first English newspaper called “The Weekly News” in 1622. Along with the first newspaper in America in Boston during the 1690s titled “Publick Occurrences”, these were heavily suppressed at first, and often shut down by the government, or put under full control of the government. So journalism was mostly state-controlled during this time period, and often only had local influence, but did begin to reach hundreds of people in those local areas that it was distributed.
During the 18th century, as the industrial revolution dawned, steam and electric power began to spread across the world, and literacy rates began to rapid increase. We can see a very large surge in demand for newspapers, and other forms of journalism. This caused new “news organizations” to appear in America, and other parts of the Western World, leading to a new sense of freedom in the career of journalism.
After this new sense of freedom was abundant in the journalist career directly due to the development of technology, and industrial revolution. We can see the rapid increase in inventions, three very important inventions to the journalist career, were the Telegraph, Radio and Television.
With the invention of the telegraph in the mid-1800s and the eventual linking of the American coasts by a telegraph system, it lead to faster circulation of news according to (Morse Code & The Telegraph) After the coast were linked through a telegraph system, it allowed for news about the events on the west coast to reach the east coast in the matter of days, unlike the weeks through the use of messengers before.
While this was a step-up from the state of journalism before, it was still inhibited due to the need of going to a government-controlled building to send a message through the telegraph, this was solved through the technological advancement which was the invention of the radio, and very shortly after the television.
The radio lead to news organization founding their own radio stations, which allowed them to broadcast their news over a very large distance, as long as someone had a radio, this could be done without the involvement of the government. The government also used the radio to spread news to the general populous through the use of “fireside” chats to gain support for their ideas, or crucial events like wars.
This was continued with the invention of the television, which almost all of us have, and watch. The fireside chats had one main change with the invention of the television, it allowed visual broadcasts to the general populous, and for news organizations it meant the ability to show the scene of a events, as long as they had the proper filming equipment.
These inventions I have written about all affected journalism in major ways, but our current 21st century would be the century with the most effect on journalism due to modern technological advancements. We have seen many inventions in a short period of time, thousands actually. From the internet, social media, and stream sites to easily mobile cameras and smaller phones.
The invention of the internet gave news organizations, and independent journalists alike the network and ability to establish their own news websites, that appear in many forms, from professional websites, to blogs and even just social media accounts.
The use of the internet has allowed journalists to reach a very large crowd, much larger than they ever could before, as long as the government in the region does not censor the journalists they can reach the entire world, as long as they have access to the internet in those locations, except for some areas that have very censored internet like the People’s Republic of China.
The further invention of social media, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, that is based on the internet, along with the invention of streaming sites, has attracted millions of people to the internet, in pursuit of knowledge, games, and communication using it. With the amount of people that use the internet, and the amount of them that use social media, and streaming sites, news both true and fake has been able to spread very rapidly, in the matter of minutes in some cases.
This is due to the ability to share, and re-share anything from news articles, to broadcast videos, to a simple pictures. This very quick circulation of all forms of news, and other information has made it so Journalism can reinforce a nation or break it.
We have seen many examples of this influence that journalism that possesses due to the rapid technological advancements, like the 2016 Presidential elections, that seen fakes news spread about all candidates, which are still around today, over a year later. Or the Syrian, Iraqi, Libyan or Yemen Civil Wars that most people would of never heard of, if it was not due to the circulation of news from one “corner” of the world to the other.
As we can see Technology has changed and affected journalism massively, and ultimately shaped our modern society to what it is today, journalism will always play a crucial role in the world, and will probably continue to grow in influence and importance.
Works Cited
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Journalism.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 27 Mar. 2017, www.britannica.com/topic/journalism. The Social Construction Of Media: Social Media's Impact on Journalism http://scalar.usc.edu/works/cultures-of-social-media/journalism http://www.altoonamirror.com/ History.com Staff. “Morse Code & the Telegraph.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2009, www.history.com/topics/inventions/telegraph. Journalist and Editor - Jade Walker http://jobshadow.com/journalist-and-editor-jade-walker/ A History Of Newspaper: Gutenberg's Press Started A Revolution Nelson, Heming. “A HISTORY OF NEWSPAPER: GUTENBERG'S PRESS STARTED A REVOLUTION.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 11 Feb. 1998, www.washingtonpost.com/archive/1998/02/11/a-history-of-newspaper-gutenbergs-press-started-a-revolution/2e95875c-313e-4b5c-9807-8bcb031257ad/?utm_term=.d5fb38e826df. History of American Journalism, history.journalism.ku.edu/. “A Brief History of Newspapers.” Newspaper History, www.historicpages.com/nprhist.htm.
