How the media changed Humanity, and Humanity changed the media over the past couple of thousand years

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Today, mass communication is the most important form of information exchange. Newspapers, radio, television and, of course, Internet access allow not only to receive almost any information, but also serve as means of propaganda and manipulation. Today, when almost every schoolchild can buy hosting and place his own blog on the Internet, it is difficult to imagine that once there were no newspapers in the world. And it all began in Ancient Rome somewhere in the middle of the 2nd century AD with wooden tablets.

Where did the media begin

It is hard to imagine, but historians claim that the first Roman newspapers were wooden tablets on which they wrote a variety of city news. And after the order of Julius Caesar, the first news publications became official - messages from the rulers of other states, reports of generals, reports of senators began to be added to ordinary news.

Somewhat later in China appeared like - news editions, which came out until the appearance of the usual newspapers today. But more widespread were the circulars, the so-called awiso, which existed until the 17th century. Awiso - Handwritten newsletters covering European news. They appeared in the 16th century in Italy and were very popular among the inhabitants of Venice and Rome. It was then that the words "newspaper" appeared - that was the name of the small Italian coin "gazzetta", which had to be paid to receive a handwritten newsletter in Venice.

The first newspapers

Today the most popular newspaper in the world is the British edition of the Guardian. It has been published for about 200 years. And it all began much more modestly. The technical prerequisite for the appearance of newspapers as we are used to seeing them was the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1450 in Mainz. The newspaper's direct predecessors were printed brochures. Relation aller Furnemmen und gedenckwurdigen Historien ("Taking into account outstanding news and memorable stories") - this was the name of the very first newspaper published in Strasbourg, Germany. The use of the printing press helped to significantly reduce the cost of periodicals and increase demand. Printed periodicals quickly spread throughout Europe: in 1609 the newspaper Aviso began to appear in Germany, in 1618 newspapers appeared in Antwerp, in 1621 - in England. Only half a century passed, and newspapers began to be printed in all European countries.

In the 17th century, most European newspapers were published weekly. The real breakthrough in this area came in 1650 with the appearance in Leipzig of the daily Einkommende Zeitung. The second daily newspaper began to be published only half a century later - the English The Daily Courant.

And what about Russia?

"Vesti-Kuranty" was the name of the first handwritten Russian newspaper, which began to be published in 1621, and later transformed into the newspaper "Vedomosti". At first it was published by clerks of the Ambassadorial Prikaz clerks in several copies. Often the news was taken from foreign publications, translated and copied into the newspaper. This edition was not intended for the general public as it had a very limited circulation.

The 19th century in Russia was marked by a real newspaper boom. Narrowly specialized newspapers grew like mushrooms: trade, industrial, literary, although news and political publications were more popular.

In the XX century the newspaper became the leader of periodicals on the Russian market. Opposition newspapers appeared, which immediately fell under the strict scrutiny of state censors, but even this could not prevent the media from forming public opinion. After the revolution in Russia, paper simply disappeared, and it became impossible to print newspapers. But as you know, the need for inventions is cunning - they limited themselves to small print runs, and the newspaper could fit on one canvas. At that time, there was an unspoken rule to read the news - do not throw it away, but give it to someone else for reading.

Publishing gimmicks

Sometimes publishers took very interesting and sometimes unexpected moves in order to attract readers or consolidate their brand in the market. So, the French humorous newspaper "Sapper's Candle" ("La Bougie du Sapeur" is published only once every 4 years - February 29th. At the moment 9 issues of the newspaper have been published. Among the most diverse material in the newspaper there is necessarily a crossword puzzle, and the answers to it traditionally, you can find out in the next issue of the newspaper - however, in this case after 4 years. On "La Bougie du Sapeur" you can subscribe to the cost of € 100 for a whole century.

Sometimes newspapers became not only the mouthpiece of world news, but also formed public opinion. So, in June 2004, Reason magazine sent each of its subscribers (and the magazine has 50 thousand) a personalized issue. But the cover bore the name and surname of the subscriber and a satellite image with a note where his house is located. Thus, the magazine raised the question of whether the government's broad powers to collect personal data are appropriate.

Sometimes editors came up with just crazy tricks to draw public attention to a particular event. On the eve of the Brazilian Football Cup final between Atletico Mineiro and Cruzeiro on November 26, 2014, the Estado de Minas newspaper published a very strange at first glance issue. In addition to football news, there were others in it, but in all the notes that were not related to football, the words were replaced with "blá blá blá".

Press today: the internet is a big deal, but not everything

Statistics claim that by subscribing, for example, to the New York Times newspaper for a whole year, a person automatically becomes a "happy" owner of 236 kg of waste paper. Perhaps that is why more and more people prefer to read the press online. With the advent of the Internet and unhindered access to it, the role of news periodicals has not diminished in the least. Moreover, today anyone can create their own news site, buy inexpensive hosting and feel like a political columnist, a cool reporter or a culinary blog host.

And even a small personal blog on free hosting can, if desired, grow to a large media holding, which will need an already proven vps hosting … However, today not everyone thinks about how to buy hosting. Small publishers can choose a ready-made platform, for example, Yandex. Zen and delight the world with their news from free hosting. True, this option has a huge disadvantage - there are no guarantees that the site will simply not disappear overnight. Therefore, such an offer may be suitable for those. who wants to try his hand or runs a page with information for a very short time.

And choosing a hosting is not at all difficult if you know certain rules.

- FirstWhat you need to pay attention to is a reliable provider. It is worth asking how long this company has been in the market and reading customer reviews.

- Second an important moment for the owner of an Internet resource is the amount of disk space on hosting … And if for now a business card you can choose the most modest offer, then if it comes to a resource that is supposed to be systematically developed and filled with media materials, then you should pay attention to virtual hosting with a good amount of disk space.

- Thirdwhat you should pay attention to is technical support. Typically, reliable hosting is 24-hour support 7 days a week. In this case, even novice webmasters will not have serious problems with their resource. And it is worth remembering that the choice of hosting is not forever. If necessary, you can always choose a different tariff, or even change the provider altogether.