[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on The Modern Media
For most of history, long-distance communication depended primarily upon conventional means of transportation. A message could be moved aboard a ship, on horseback, by pigeon, or with a human courier, but in virtually all cases it had to be conveyed as a mass through space like any other material commodity. This basic condition of human communication ended in the 19th century due to a series of technological advances. Broadcasting dramatically changed life in the United States wherever it was introduced. Radio brought news and information from around the world into homes.
The availability of professionally crafted drama and music, historically a privilege of the elite, was now expected by the general public on a daily basis. The networks brought the performances of talented artists to large numbers of people in areas otherwise isolated from concert halls, theaters, and other traditional venues. The parallel growth of network radio and Hollywood sound cinema, both of which were launched as commercial enterprises in 1927, created an unprecedented mass culture shared by people of a wide range of social classes, ethnic backgrounds, and educational achievement. The influence of broadcasting was further expanded by television during the 1950s but began to diminish in the 1980s as new technologies—especially cable television—gradually led to a fragmenting of the broadcasting audience.
New broadcast delivery systems continue to be developed. In the increasing number of homes equipped with digital cable systems, broadcast radio stations must now compete against scores of commercial-free digital music channels, each offering round-the-clock delivery of a single style or genre of music. Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) provides television viewers with a personal satellite dish antenna capable of capturing signals without the help of a local cable provider. Subscription fees are charged by DBS providers to unscramble the channels, making the cable and satellite delivery methods competitive......
