Media History Midterm

Ch 1-5

According to Kovarik, what is history?

An active investigation of what happened & what we can learn from the past

Motivations for historians

1. To remember & honor history’s heros

2. To learn the lessons of history

Why is Harold Innis important?

Said that western civilization has been profoundly influenced by communication technologies

Why is Marshall McLuhan important?

Put communication at the center of history and social life.

Determinism

See technologies as path-dependant, with inevitable changes & predictable impacts on society

Social Construction of (Media) Technology (SCOT)

See a stronger influence for economics, politics, & culture that controls technological development

What did Gutenberg need to create the “flawless” Bible

Movable metal type

What did Gutenberg create prior to the Bible

Pilgrim badges

Social context of Gutenberg’s time

Occurred during the rising need for education among the nobility & merchants of Renisaance Europe in the 1200’s

Why was printing “revolutionary”?

Rapidly expanded throughout the world

Printing’s effects

• Diffusion of scholarship (“cheap” education)

• Unification of language

• Standardization of info. 

• Spread of humanism 

• Comparison of new & old ideas

Martin Luther & Protestant Reformation

The 95 Theses was mass printed → Crowds surged to buy → Within weeks everyone in Europe knew. Other reformists knew to use the press for their ideas. 

North American Printers & Religious Tolerance

In NA tolerance became a large part of the new creed of printing in the 1650’s, became the leap towards human rights.

Steam-powered press

Friedrich Koenig invented it. The beginning of industrial printing production. Cost of production goes down, potential for advertsing support goes up.

The '“Penny Press”

Took off in the U.S, 1830’s. Democratized the media. Publishers could cater to broad public tastes, no longer only for elites. Could write on scanadal hoaxes, popular trends, etc.

The 4 important NYC Penny Presses

1. The Sun

2. The Herald

3. The Tribune

4. The Times

‘The Sun’ owner

Benjamin Day

“The Herald’ owner

James Gordon Bennet

‘The Tribune’ Owner

Horace Greeley

‘The Times’ owner

Henry Raymond

The late 19th century progressive era

Crusading, yellow, & tabloid journalism

Crusading Journalism

Writing against negative things impacting the public such as poverty, corruption, slum housing

Yellow Journalism

use eye-catching headlines and sensationalized exaggerations for increased sales.

Tabloid Journalism

news stories that are over-exaggerated, sensationalized, or falsified for the sake of grabbing readers' attention and generating higher profits

Muckraking journalism’s message

The muckrakers provided detailed, accurate journalistic accounts of the political and economic corruption and social hardships caused by the power of big business in a rapidly industrializing U.S.

Censorship of the press during WW1

Blanket censorship. Was to prevent people from home from learning demoralizing info. about defeats & difficult conditions. 

Press & Propaganda in Nazi Germany

Nazi’s used the arts, literature, the press, radio & films for prop. only. Newspaper reporters & editors that attempted to criticize (even mildly) were cent to camps or killed outright,

Hutchins Commission

found that freedom of expression had been imperiled by accelerating tech. & by arrogant and irresponsible publishers. publishers should “regard themselves as common carriers of info. & discussion”

African-American Press & Civil Rights

began in 1827, in NY with the Freedoms Journal. some 2,700  newspapers came to life during the 19th & 20th cent., would only survive an average of 9yrs. 

Watergate scandal

during the early 1970s that involved a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters and the subsequent cover-up by members of Nixon's administration. highlighted the complex relationship between media & political communication, revealing how investigative journalism can expose corruption and lead to significant political consequences.

The basics of how photography tech. works

combines two distinct sciences: optics – the convergence of light rays to form an image inside a camera – and chemistry, to enable that image to be captured and recorded permanently onto a photosensitive (light-sensitive) surface.

The Daguerreotypes

technique consisted of a silver-plated copper sheet that would first be polished until its surface was mirrorlike. After the polishing was done, the copper plate was kept in a dark room, where it was exposed to chemicals to form a light-sensitive layer of silver iodine. one of a kind.

Pictorialism

Photographic movement. Depicted subjects with soft visuals effects in artistic poses

Photojournalism & Social Reform

Muckraking photography 

Photograpy uses in Magazines

Still photographs would be released in magazines (usually weekly), this catered to younger adults → increased audience

Muybridge

Used glass plate to sequence images. Horse bet → set up an experiment involving a series of cameras with shutters hooked to trip wires to prove a horse lifted all 4 legs off ground at once.

Lumieres

Auguste & Louis. Created the cinematographe, was both a camera and projector.

Silent Film — Racism expressed through

Birth of a Nation. Romanticized slavery-era antebellum South & depicted roconstruction-era African Americans as rapists, drunkards, and murderers.

Silent Film — Expressionistic

German expressionism. Major influence on mainstream cinema. Uses emotions rather than realism to express an artistic idea. 

Silent Film — Chaplin

The Immigrants → his own frustrations with the U.S. gov. Modern Times → fustration with the dehumanizing pace of modernization. 

World War 2 & Propaganda

“Golden Age” of propganda. Classic Nazi propaganda: The Triumph of Will, The Eternal Jew.

Merchandising & Advertising

As images became more prevalant, & more professional, advertising shifted to a more appealing, image-building, consumer-centred message.

Start of ad agencies

Industrial press → More ad space → Speacialists who offered advertising services began to emerge

muckracking vs. public relations

Muckrakers showed that the newly emerging mass media—newspapers and magazines— could turn public opinion and public policy against the seemingly all-powerful corporate giants. These corporate giants began hiring public relations practitioners to present their side in the court of public opinion.