Publications were increasingly being supported by advertising. Publishers had to consider the effect articles would have on their advertisers. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), set up in 1914, was an independent US agency created to keep competition fair and safe. The FTC was especially dedicated to enforcing truth in advertising. It would confirm the case for requiring health warnings on products such as cigarettes and liquor later in the 20th century. The introduction of such a commission shows the changes in society and how social, political and economic factors influenced the media.
Radio dominated the Twenties, with around 3 million Americans owning radios by 1923. The appeal of the spoken word attracted audiences and advertisers, while publishers were forced to improve upon image to keep profits. A major turning point was Television, wireless transmission of moving pictures, which was first demonstrated in 1926, combining sight and sound to rival radio.
Tabloids continued being characterised by scandal and crime. This style of media reflected the lifestyle and spirit of the time. The press hounded Charles Lindbergh, the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic, from New York to Paris in 1927. His 3610-mile journey, completed in 33.5 hours, made him an international hero. This was a time when anyone who appeared in the press became an instant celebrity. The press was often preoccupied with entertainment, rather than concentrating on reporting significant stories or news events.
Next came the most important innovation in cinema - the addition of sound to film. Also radio began being used for the promotion of newspapers, with news being read from the papers that sponsored time on the radio. Radio brought politicians into people's homes, and many politicians went to learn effective public speaking for radio broadcasts.
Radio's success as a tool for mass communication attracted advertisers to market their products to a large and growing audience. Radio was perceived as a more effective communications tool compared to print. It reached out to a larger audience and even those who couldn't read could probably grasp the spoken word. Many non-English speaking immigrants listened to the radio to familiarise themselves with the language and customs.
The beginnings of television started when Scottish inventor John L. Baird first telecasted an object in motion in England, 1926. In 1928, General Electric began the first regular broadcast station, WGY, in New York. These milestones paved the way for the coming television revolution. However the high cost of the technology and World War II prevented the television from becoming widespread and available until the Fifties.
In 1929, The Great Depression started with the collapse of the American stock market. At the lowest point in 1933, 16 million people, or one third of the United States working population were unemployed. Many advertisers switched to radio from newspapers, spending US$60 million in radio commercials. Radio sales rose from 75,000 in 1921, to 13.5 million in 1930. Radio was part of all aspects of American life, filling it with music, news, entertainment and advertisements.
While television was still in its developmental stages, theatre newsreels were a very dominant form of entertainment and information, and were considered the forerunner of television news. The newsreel presented public figures and events around the world.
President Roosevelt of the United States made use of radio to speak to the masses, in broadcasts known as "fireside chats" to suggest a cosy and comfortable feeling among listeners. Receiving information directly from an authoritative voice added credibility to the report. Confidence returned, and banks began to restart transactions. Listeners felt they were being spoken to personally, in contrast to the feeling of being addressed anonymously as in the newspapers.
Adolf Hitler, the leader of Germany, invaded Austria on March 13, 1938. He first obtained Sudetenland from the Czechs by signing the Munich Pact. Before then, cultural and human interest stories of radio networks in Europe were re-broadcast in America. Edward R. Murrow, at first an unknown correspondent who had become the European news chief of CBS in 1937, improvised the first coordinated radio broadcast to America from multiple European locations. During the 20-day period of diplomatic talks in Munich, America heard live broadcasts from 14 European cities. The voices of Hitler, Czech President Benes, British Prime Minister Chamberlain and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini were heard first-hand. The radio coverage of the Munich crisis confirmed its power to inform and influence its audience. Radio helped the war events become a reality to those far away from it.
Radio advertising bloomed. The messages of radio advertising were similar to that of mass magazine advertising. Advertisers paid less attention to the special qualities and focused more on what people wanted or hoped to be. They claimed their products helped people feel young, rich and envied
Throughout the 1930s, David Sarnoff, president of Radio Corporation of America, started the force to develop the television. In 1937, 17 experimental television stations emerged. Television was publicly introduced at the 1939 World's Fair in New York. The phenomenon of bringing both pictures and sound to a home audience would soon shake the position of radio and print media. However, World War II continued to prevent its development.
During the 1930s and 1940s, five large companies dominated the American film industry: Fox, MGM, Warner Brothers, Paramount and RKO, while Rank and ABPC dominated the British film industry. Some of the most famous films of all time were made during this period: Gone With the Wind in 1939, Citizen Kane in 1941 and Casablanca in 1942.
The media was a powerful tool to encourage the war effort. From 1939 to 1945 the world grew stronger as the war became more violent, perhaps the media could be seen as a powerful spirit of encouragement and determination, and as the war was won a new world evolved.
The path was now clear for one of the most significant technological advances to emerge and for the media to dominate and grow through. Community Antenna Television, CATV, was started in 1948 in America, with most television stations in large cities like New York. There were roughly one million television sets by 1948. On television, there were comedy sketches, music, and news and commentaries, all in black and white. Only in 1953, was a colour system developed by the RCA (Radio Corporation of America). As the end of the Forties, communism and the threat of a nuclear war loomed, radio and television provided laughter, entertainment and a much-needed distraction, in addition to news. Television would dramatically develop into pleasurable programming and enlightening news in the next decade, known as the Golden Age of Television.
Television dominated the media industry from 1950 onwards. The Fifties were remembered for the Cold War, when fear of nuclear destruction and takeover by the Communists was strong. Cinema, radio and print media were to compete with television, which gave the best of both worlds, pictures and sound. Print media, radio and film were forced to rethink their approaches towards news and entertainment. Television quickly became a hot advertising medium in the 1950s. Television advertisements created fantasies about the products and how people would become happy and successful with them.
The Queen's Coronation on June 2, 1953 in Westminster Abbey ushered in the television age, particularly in Britain, sales rocketed as a result of this famous event, an estimated 20 million TV viewers saw the young Queen crowned, the first major event in Britain to be televised.
The 1960’s saw a change in political, social and cultural issues. Television's effect on politics, advertising and public perception continued to grow. In 1962, with the communications satellite Telstar I in space, followed by other satellites, news reports from around the world could be transmitted directly to a network broadcast centre, giving television great power to communicate major world events in real time.
The civil rights movement in America, environmental damage, protests and marches, women's demands for equality, the space race and the landing on the moon, as well as the Vietnam War, all appeared live on the television screen. As the Freedom Fighters marched under the direction of Martin Luther King Junior, the television cameras brought the story to life. The Vietnam War also became a big television story as the conflict escalated in 1965. On July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 landing vehicle the ‘Eagle’, touched down on the surface of the moon. Worldwide, people held their breath as they heard Neil Armstrong report from the moon. A television camera mounted on the Eagle sent back live images to Earth, of Neil Armstrong climbing down and stepping onto the surface of the moon. Television had brought the world closer in an outstanding way.
Television news and newspapers became more distinctly separated in the 1960s, as print media sales began to rise. While television gave the headlines, newspapers gave more in depth interpretation and coverage. By nature, reporting is hardly ever objective or impartial. “In conflict coverage information is often ‘glossed’ over or screened according to its supposed or expected impact”. People became more aware of the manipulation and exploitation that the media were capable of, the world was now inseparable, not only from its history, but from the media.
News became more believable in the Seventies, as people witnessed events on television, rather than reading or hearing from radio or newspapers, as they occurred. Television continued to grow in the next decade as new networks formed and satellite television emerged, allowing events from around the world to be broadcast live. Cable news and subscription cable television also grew in popularity, competing with network television. In the 1980s, many new specialty magazines were introduced. The themes of these included the New Age Movement, family and divorce, computers and technology; and men and women's magazines. They reflected the trends of the time, for example, with the increasing divorce rate, new families needed to know how to cope and stay together as well as where to find support. Many people read to learn how to cope in a changing world and how to deal with new dilemmas.
Professional sports had long been linked to advertising and media coverage, especially the major sporting events, such as the Super Bowl and the World Series in America. In the 1980s, advertising sponsorship of sports and endorsement by sports figures had reached multi-million dollar figures. Advertisers sometimes named products after sports stars, such as Nike's Air Jordan (after basketball great Michael Jordan). As millions were paid to sports stars for endorsements, the cost of products rose. It was a time of "brand names" or branded goods. This was a major trend that would spiral into the Nineties and heavily influence fashion and trends.
In addition to the basic cable channels, viewers could now pay for other premium channels, such as Disney Channel's movies and cartoons, and movie stations such as Home Box Office, Showtime and Playboy. There were exclusive pay-per-view sporting and ‘must see’ events. These led to pay-per-view movies, featuring a variety of movies not yet out for rent. Cable and network television showed movies with more graphic content, adult language and violence to help maintain their audiences. Home shopping channels were extremely successful, as viewers could order products advertised on television from their homes, and this aided the hectic lifestyle of working parents who had little time to shop.
In the 1980s, scandal, sex and violence were abundant in movies, as well as in the radio, television and print news. Advertising glorified wealth, beauty and success. Fashion increasingly dominated the media, dictating trends and lifestyles, encouraging money to be spent in this growing area.
As the 20th century was coming to an end, a new media was born - the Internet. The massive amounts of information speeding down the Internet or World Wide Web would excite and overwhelm the world. Everyone was plugging in for what was to come. The Internet links people together through their computer terminals with modems connected to telephone lines. A web of networks and software allows users from all around the world to communicate with one another. The Internet is now open to the world. The number of people accessing the net at any one time is unsure, though it is probably in the tens of millions. This also means that most of the content on the Internet is unfiltered and unchecked. The debate over content and public access of web sites will go on into the 21st century. Advertising in the mid-1990s evolved greatly with the rapid growth of the Internet. However, online advertising was relatively modest because the Internet was very new and its effectiveness was uncertain. The total advertising revenue in 1997 was estimated at $400-$699 million, 12 times more than that of 1995, but still only a small portion of all advertising spending. One new advertising mixture to take hold of the Nineties was the "advertorial". Which resembles regular columns or features, biased advertisements posing as unbiased editorials. Cross-marketing and media consolidation have become more widespread in the 1990’s. A network station owned by Disney began having more talk shows visit Disneyland or mentioning their films. Movie tie-ins with fast food chains and breakfast cereals dominate advertising during children’s programming.
Wireless communications continued to develop in the 1990s. Cordless phones, pagers and mobile phones are becoming more commonplace. The nineties also saw the introduction of wireless computer networks, direct-broadcast satellite television, digital wireless cable TV networks and a global phone service. As we enter the 21st century, technology is developing to make these systems cheaper, more reliable and easier to use. The impact of such technology and communication tools is phenomenal.
However, who knows what the future holds, how will the media expand, change, evolve in one week, or one decade. When globalisation and technology set the pace, the media play a key role in the life of the world. They not only relate the facts, but undeniably exert some influence on them too.
