Major Technological Changes During the Period from the 15th Century to the 2010s

Followed by the invention of paper in ancient China 105 A.D., the development of human civilization has been involved in the revolution of information. From the first codex which was written on the parchment and emerged in the fourth century AD to the most recent Twitter on the Internet, the mediums of sharing the information have experienced an earthshaking change. Indeed, the innovation of technology has played a significant role in the development of mass media. The following essay will discuss the major media trends which were led by the invention of new technology and how exactly a new technology would create a restructuring of political and economic system during the period of mid-fifteenth century to the 2010s in America.

According to the textbook, the author Starr introduced the developmental path in American mass communication, which started with the postal service and newspaper publishing, then the development of telegraph and telephone, later the advent of movies, broadcasting, and the whole repertoire of mass communication (Starr p. 3). It was clear that each turning point in the path of development of mass communication was involved with the innovation of a new technology.

In the mid-1450s AD, Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable metal typing, which directly established the commercial organization of printing as well as a capitalist framework in the book trade. According to the first lecture note of unit one, before the time of Gutenberg, the rise of hand-made manuscripts created a commercial condition for the printing. However, the emergence of the movable type system has a quicker production process compared with the duration of hand-made manuscript or wood block printing because of the efficiency of limited En...

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...e radio-manufacturer was located in Westinghouse in Pittsburgh; and by1920, Westinghouse’s newly licensed Pittsburgh Station, KDKA, broadcasted the results of the presidential election, which represented the beginning of the American broadcasting history with the medium of the radio. Based on the Starr chapter 10 from unit four, from 1922 to 1925, the number of radio receivers climbed to an estimated 2.75 million, and the proportion of homes in the America with radios grew from 0.2 to 10.1 percent (Starr p. 335). What’s more, during the Great Depression, the radio served political usage; for instance, Franklin Roosevelt broadcasted his election in 1932 and made a radio speech in bank crisis in 1933 (Lecture note from unit four). Therefore, the technology-leading broadcasting significantly influenced the political development within the American mass media history.