theriseandfallofmasscommunications.docVIP

The rise and fall of mass communications 1. Back to the coffee house: The internet is taking the news industry back to the conversational culture of the era before mass media There is a great historical irony at the heart of the current transformation of news. The industry is being reshaped by technology—but by undermining the mass media’s business models, that technology is in many ways returning the industry to the more vibrant, freewheeling and discursive ways of the pre-industrial era. Three hundred years ago news travelled by word of mouth or letter, and circulated in taverns and coffee houses in the form of pamphlets, newsletters and broadsides. The Coffee houses particularly are very commodious for a free Conversation, and for reading at an easie Rate all manner of printed News. This phenomenon can be traced back to Roman times, when members of the elite kept each other informed with a torrent of letters, transcriptions of speeches and copies of the acta diurna, the official gazette that was posted in the forum each day. News travelled along social networks because there was no other conduit. The invention of the printing press meant that many copies of a document could be produced more quickly than before, but distribution still relied on personal connections. Newspapers at the time had small, local circulations and were a mix of opinionated editorials, contributions from readers and items from other papers; there were no dedicated reporters. All these early media conveyed news, gossip, opinion and ideas within particular social circles or communities, with little distinction between producers and consumers of information. They were social media. Until the early 19th century there was no technology for disseminating news to large numbers of people in a short space of time. It travelled as people chatted in marketplaces and taverns or exchanged letters with their friends. Everything changed in 1833 when the first mass-audience newspaper, the New York Sun