The Electronic Media

1
The Electronic Media

• Volti Chapter 12

2
The Electronic Media

• The printed word was the dominant type of
  communication after it was invented
• Toward the end of the last century this began to
  change

3
The Invention of Radio

• Telegraph - first device to make use of
  electricity for sending and receiving signals
• Samuel Morse, inventor of the Morse code - dots
  and dashes represented words
• Used for many things - railroads news from other
  regions became accessible
• Limitations many trained operators required
  telegraph wires had to be strung - expensive
• Wireless communication needed
• Heinrich Hertz - produced radio waves with an
  oscillator (rapidly generated electrical
  impulses)
• Hertz focus was of purely scientific inquiry, but
  others saw practical application resulting from
  his work

4
The Origins of Commercial Radio

• Radio - main use was for ship to shore
  applications
• Transmit messages across oceans
• Used during WWI
• Amateur radio operators began using radio to
  transmit personal messages, weather bulletins,
  musical recordings, etc.
• Corporations, inspired by profit, developed
  interest in radio (Westinghouse)
• First programs were low-budget - phonograph
  recordings has tiny royalties, live performers
  usually did so for free
• ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors,
  and Publishers) began demanding fees

5
The Rise of Television

• Radio could only reach one sense - the desire for
  a mode of communication that contained sound and
  pictures was sought
• Early efforts to transmit the pictures
  electronically depended on the Niplow Disk
• Disk perforated by holes arranged in spiral,
  interposed between object and screen containing
  selenium cells (could activate electrical current
  when light fell on it). As disk rotated,
  pinpoints of light moved across the screen,
  generating a picture. Very slow and inefficient
  process.
• Vladimir Zworykin (Russian émigré) produced first
  workable television camera (1928) - called the
  Iconoscope
• 1939 - Radio Corporation of America (RCA) began
  the regular broadcast of TV programs to a few
  thousand receivers in NYC

6
The Federal Government Steps In

• Development of radio and tv largely private
  enterprise, but government played important role
• Westinghouse and American Telephone and Telegraph
  had financial stake in RCA in return for use of
  their patents.
• Federal Government used its regulatory power to
  insure an orderly environment for broadcasting
• Used licensing and minimum requirements for
  broadcasting
• Broadcasters could only broadcast on a specific
  frequency
• Federal Government establishes the Federal Radio
  Commission, which later becomes the Federal
  Communications Commissions (FCC) - 1934
• 7 person panel, each serving 7 year term
  appointed by President
• Essential element in the system of radio
  broadcasting
• When TV went into its period of rapid growth in
  the late 1940s and 50s some of its success
  could be attributed to the uniform technical
  standards developed by FCC

7
Problems of Regulation

• FCC typically renews broadcasting license if
  broadcaster meets minimum requirements. Thus,
  quality control has often gone by the wayside
• FCC is often at the mercy of Industry, who has
  technical expertise, whereas FCC does not.
• FCC commissioners often leave FCC to work for
  broadcasting companies - conflict of Interest
• FCC commissioners have generally opted for the
  status quobroadcasting - became little more
  than a way of making large sums of money

8
The Social and Psychological Consequences of
Television

• 1950 - 4.6 hours of TV watching per day
• 1970 - 5.9 hours of TV watching per day
• 1980 - 6.5 hours of TV watching per day
• 1988 - 7.1 hours of TV watching per day
• 1992 - 192 Million TV sets in America
• 98 of all American households own at least one
  TV
• Qualifications
• Just because TV is on doesnt mean it is being
  actively viewed. TV is often in the background of
  American domestic life, much like wallpaper.
  Better-educated people dont watch less TV, they
  watch different TV - public TV.

9
Violence on Television and Its Consequences

• 18 year old will have seen 18,000 murders on TV
• 80 of TV programs have some violence
• 7 out of 10 characters on TV are involved in
  violence
• Between 1 and 2 out of 10 are involved in
  killing
• Does violence on TV cause aggressive behavior in
  its viewers? Hotly debated issue
• Children are more likely to play with toy guns
  after seeing filmed aggressive acts, even if
  gunplay did not appear in the film
• Laboratory experiments that study this
  relationship are NOT real life
• Violence cannot be entirely linked to TV
  violence. The social world is far more complex
  than to be explained by a simple relationship
• Violent behavior is a product of complex
  motivations and inhibitions
• We do not commit an act of violence because
• We have learned that such actions are likely to
  result in retaliation
• We know that they usually do not solve the
  problem
• We have internalized a code of behavior that
  discourages such acts
• TV can alter these inhibiting factors

10
Television, Information, and News

• Until recent times most people were blissfully
  ignorant of the world around them
• Electronic communications has changed this
• U.S. - 17,000 newspapers 12,000 periodicals 400
  million radios 192 million TVs
• TV has been the most important element in recent
  communication revolution
• But TV is not completely dominant - TV much less
  important for local news than the local
  newspapers
• For national and international news TV is prime
  source for coverage
• News presented on TV is fundamentally different
  than news that appears in papers
• News on TV presented as soundbite
• Newspaper - impersonal TV - storytelling

11
Television and Politics

• Has TV fundamentally altered the political
  process?
• No doubt politics of today is far different from
  the days of Harry Truman, who campaigned from the
  back of a railroad car
• Today, TV advertising plays a big role in
  elections
• Prime time TV ads - 200,000
• Typical political campaign budgets 1/3 for TV
  advertising
• Increased costs for campaigns may lead
  politicians under the influence of powerful,
  wealthy interest groups, which may or may not
  represent the will of the population
• TV can influence elections
• 35 voters do not decide who theyll vote for
  until the last week of election
• 10 undecided right up to the day of the election
• It is these groups on which TV ads can have the
  most impact
• TV ads can be detrimental to the political
  process because ads often reduce a politicians
  message to a sound bite. Real world problems are
  not so simple
• "As some critics have argued, the greatest threat
  to democracy may not come from the assault of
  hostile nations, but from the trivialization of
  the political process that occurs when television
  dictates the basic mode of discourse and
  comprehension."