Chapter 12: The Electronic Media

• The invention of the radio is generally credited to Marconi, although there were many others who added important innovations that would make the radio a reliable means of communication.
• Initially radio was used by the military and and for ship to shore communication
• First commercial station was KDKA – 1920. By 1922 there were more than  500 stations.
• These stations were originally basically commercial free. When the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) demanded royalties for recorded music, stations began running commercials

• The first  workable television camera and receiver was produced in 1928.
•  In 1939 RCA began the first regularly scheduled broadcasts.

• Congress established the Federal Communications Commission to oversee and regulate television and radio. 
• Important responsibilities of the FCC are to issue licenses to radio and television stations, assign broadcast frequencies and set technical standards
• Ongoing problems with the FCC are (1) whether it truly considers the public's interest and (2) potential conflicts of interest.

• Amount of time spent watching television each day is 3 hours and 16 minutes
• Connection between violence on television and violent behavior: definite correlation, but not necessarily causation.
• Sense of immediacy of events, not necessarily better information.
•  Television news lends itself to short “sound bites” rather than in-depth analysis. Average news story is less than 1.5 minutes.
• Politically, television has led to a focus on form rather than content (style, image) since it is confined to 30 second commercials.
• Some believe television has had a negative impact on our attention spans and imagination.

• Internet: a giant network of smaller computer networks that allows users to access files located anywhere within these individual networks. Note: the Internet is not the WWW! 
• Originally developed by the Defense Department: ARPANET.
• An important concept in the development of the Internet was Packet switching:  information was broken into small packets which could follow different paths to the destination.  Packet switching was necessary in case of enemy attack.
• The World Wide Web
  •  The World Wide Web is a part of the Internet; it is a collection of Web pages with links to other web pages.  It is the part of the Internet that supports multimedia.
  • The technology and software that are used on the WWW are "open source."  No one holds a patent to it or controls it.  As a result the Web has experienced explosive growth:  In  1993 there were  600 web sites; today more than 10 million .
• The internet has made a tremendous impact on business communications and has given rise to e-commerce (conducting business on the internet).
• The Internet is also creating a revolution in education through the use of Web-based learning.