Media Then, Media Now

By: Curtis

Back when America was founded by Christopher Columbus, before the French Revolution, before the 300 Spartans fought the Persians, alphabets were already used. Before the creation of alphabets, people carved on walls to record history. But with the creation of alphabets, was the written form of history - instead of pictorial ones. As a result of the invention of alphabets, media came to be. Letters started to be written on items.  Items that looked like paper were created and used. The first printing press was made out of wood. It was created in 1051 A.D. in China. The very first movable type printing press was not Gutenberg in the 1440’s. The first movable printing press was actually made in Korea in 1234 (notes from MI 101 class).

With the use of printing press, books were made. Books were some of the first types of media and are still part of today’s society, even though they may be used less often now due to the increase of social media. Of course, back then books were rare and if there were any for sale, they would probably be bibles. As books were published, more and more people became literate (notes from MI 101 class). With more and more people able to read, people started to use this to their advantage and began to promote things and giving people news from and to other places. It was pretty much the building blocks of civilization.

As books came in demand, printing presses needed to improve their production rate. People looked for cheaper and faster ways for books to be printed. As technology improved, so did the production rates of books. Books these days are printed easily and the cost to print each book is cheap. But we do not use books or newspapers as the main source of media anymore. Nowadays, people use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media to communicate information. Even the books that worked so well for centuries had started to decrease in print because of electronic copies that are available. I used to go to Borders near where I lived and had a great time there reading books. That all changed when Borders closed down and that forced me to go to bookstores even farther away. I prefer printed books over new electronic copies because of how easily distracted I get when I use the internet for reading.

Work cited

McPherson, Jim. "Media History Timeline." Media History Timeline. Whitworth College, 2002. Web. 24 Sept. 2016.

Straubhaar, Joseph D., Robert LaRose, and Lucinda Davenport. Media Now: Understanding Media Culture and Technology. 8th ed. Boston, MA: Wadsworth, 2014. Print.

Ewoldsen, David. "Print Media: Books, Newspaper, Magazines." MI 101. B115 Wells Hall, East Lansing. 13 Sept. 2016. Lecture.