The History of Communication

1. The History of Communication The early years

2. Draw it out • I need a few volunteers to come up and see if they can communicate with the class, using anything other than words. • I’ll provide the phrases. You have 2 minutes.

3. The Very Early Years... • Symbol - the conventional representation of a concept. • Simple: • Abstract/deeper:

4. The Very Early Years... • Cave Paintings - A series of symbols or pictures used to tell a message, show an event, or pass information.

5. The Very Early Years... • Petroglyphs- Carvings in a rock surface. • Pictograms- A series of symbols representing an object, activity, place, or event through illustration.

6. The Very Early Years... • Ideograms- graphic symbols or pictograms that represent and idea (tend to be more abstract) • Example: The cigarette illustration is a pictogram, and the red circle and bar is a ideogram, representing “no” or “not allowed”.

7. The Very Early Years... • Writing and the alphabet • Started with the documentation of numbers inscribed in clay discs. • Earliest form of the alphabet was the Abjad. • System of writing where each symbol stood for a consonant, and the vowel was inserted regionally. • No definitive origin but popular theories lead to Egypt and Greece.

8. A little bit softer now... • All these forms of communication have been non-verbal, non-interactive. • How can we communicate with one another, face to face, without using words? With the person next to you, take turns communicating by non verbally the following phrases: • “Don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of it.” • “The smelly boy fell off his bike.” • “The noise your heard was a giant monster”

9. A little bit louder now... • So we just created cave paintings and the alphabet... • How could one group of people communicate with another over long distances? • Lets come up with some ideas.

10. Long Distance Communication • Prehistoric: Fires, smoke signals, drums, horns. • BC- Mail, runners, pigeon post, heliograph. • 15th - 19th century- Signal lamps, telegraph, telephone, radio

11. Longer Distance Communication. • The radio began as wireless telegraphy. • So what is a telegraph? • A telegraph is the long distance transmission of messages without the physical exchange of an object bearing the message.

12. Brief Radio History • Credited to Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian inventor. • Development in the 1890’s led to the discovery that the transmission rage is proportional to the square of antenna height. • We call this Marconi’s Law.

13. Brief Radio History • Primarily uses • Commercial (business use) • Military (war) • Naval • Eventually gave way to entertainment and advertising.

14. Entertainment on the Air Waves • Initial radio programs were originally done live, and broadcast from an event, not a studio. • A concert • Opera • Play (theater)

15. Radio Popularity • Rise in popularity after a few devastating events

16. Popular Programing • 1920’s • Sponsored music program’s, big band performances, and classical music. Adventure, mystery, horror, romance, and dramas were all common place • 1930’s and 1940’s • Stand up comedy, soap operas, performance based adaptations (comics, book series etc) • 1950’s • Rock and roll, and the start of the Top 40

17. A different kind of war... • In 1938 CBS aired the production of ‘War of the Worlds” by Orson Wells

18. Orson Wells- War of the Worlds (1938)