Hello to everyone --
I've done some early research, focusing almost completely (so far) on the history of what has become the modern media. Before I go on, it is important to clarify just what we mean when we are talking about the "media." How narrow should I focus for the purposes of this blog? Initially, I was fed up with the growth of the entertainment media, or, as I sometimes call it, "trash culture. Where does pop culture end and "serious," or "news" media begin? What piece of the pie does "pop culture" or "popular media" take up in the sphere that is the media at large? While I want to focus almost solely on the American media, I will say that it might be necessary to also refer to the media worldwide, or in other countries, as well.
It is important to note that the news media is just one tiny part of a much, much larger Public Relations Industry. Well, after reading and listening to the opinions of Chomsky, for one, I find I agree with him that the media as we now know it began, in earnest, during the mid ninteenth century, with the advent of publications in the United States and England, the two leading progenitors of early newsies, pamphlets, and papers. These publications were at the height of their power, and freedom during this time. These early outlets were likely the necessity of what was, at the time, a revolution in information and independent thought.
It started in part with the publication of the first modern language Bible by Gutenberg in 1455. No longer were people bound to listening to the Word in a language most of them never spoke, much less read. Fast forward roughly two centuries, and we have the popular advent of Enlightenment thought and a notion of inalienable rights by John Locke, and instituted and commoditized in the French and American Revolutions. Alongside, mostly after, this was the growth of a new, and immense power in the hands of men: that of Nationalism. This is all according to admittedly limited knowledge and personal opinion on my part, coupled with the limited narrow scope offered by a single paragraph, but I feel that it offers a macrocosmal view of what is a very long, very complicated evolution that birthed the modern media.
In a nutshell, one of the earliest examples of popular media was the legendary story telling of the use of carrier pigeon to announce the results of the first Olympic games in 776 B.C. Fast forward to another early benchmark, the first radio transmission by Guglielmo Marconi in 1901. The implications are immense, and these events supported the need, and publication, of news and editorial through such important publications as the London Gazette and Thomas Paine's immesnley powerful "Common Sense," which helped stoke the fires of sentiment for the American Revolution.
So here we are, the birth of popular media, anticipating the rise of "pop" culture. In my next entry, I want to talk about the process by which a socially democratic media was undermined by the wielding of powers that sought to limit the dissemination of information and opinion to the public at large. I think that there is an effort the control public thought. If I am right, when and how did the Establishment begin to use supression of information, rather than brute force, to help control the people?
That's it.
