History of media

1930’s

• BBC broadcasts television four days a week

• transmits a play by television, 240 lines/sec of resolution

• A recording, the Hindenburg crash, is the first coast to coast broadcast.

• "golden age" of radio begins

1940’s

• fantasia• first digital computer to be put in

service• electronic colour TV

demonstrated• comic book publishers are selling

25,000,000 copies a month• Churchill's radio speeches

encourage battered Britons, others

1950’s• 3D movies offer thrills to the

audience• A surgical operation is televised• "top 40" radio music format

created• TV guide; initial press run• A computer is part of a movie

plot: Desk set, with Tracy and Hepburn

• comic book code censors horror, hurts sales, hits industry hard

1960’s• A wireless microphone is used in a

movie, mutiny on the bounty.• Andy Warhol paints many images of

Campbell's soup cans, Marilyn Monroe.

• Dr. No begins the James bond series• Hollywood adopts an age-based

rating system• footage of JFK assassination

broadcast around the Oswald• also at the movies: the graduate,

cool hand Luke, bonnie and clyde

1970’s

• the word "internet" enters the lexicon• the BBC offers ceefax• 1971- the first e-mail was sent• punk rock music emerges with

themes of nihilism, anarchy• the critical paradigm was formed in

the early 1970's, raising questions about media and power.

• Advent of influential journals 'screen' and screen education

1980’s• Charles and Dianna's wedding attracts

worldwide audiences of 750 million- the most watched television event.

• photos can be digitally manipulated on a home computer.

• Researchers try to index the exploding internet; can't keep up

• 50 newspapers now offer online access to news texts

• desktop publishing became familiar• USA today is a newspaper influenced by

television news style• Michael Jackson's album Thriller sells 25

million copies

1990’s• DVD's go on sale• Nokia sends text messages between

mobile phones• Forrest Gump uses digital photo tricks

to insert person into historical footage.• Image of dancing baby emailed

worldwide, becomes TV's Ally McBeal regular

• $35,000 Blair Witch Project shows potential of low cost video production

• Digital satellite TV service, direct TV, offered

2000’s• iPod holds 10,000 tunes, but fits into a

shirt pocket• The Sims 2 advances story games for

computer• iTunes music store offers tune for 99 cents• south Africa's sesame street introduces an

HIV-positive puppet• Apple to distribute movies through I tunes• feature film, Attack of the clones,

produced entirely in digital format.• UK workers spend more time with email

than with their children

The Hays Code• The first attempt at introducing film

censorship in the US through laying down a series of guidelines to film producers

• The code was founded according to the concept: "if motion pictures present stories that will affect lives for the better, They can become the most powerful force for the improvement of mankind"

• The Code was based on three general principles

• Directly influenced the content of almost every American film made between 1930 and 1966