Communications....

            From the beginning of time, man has had the need to live amongst a community. We are undeniably a species that cannot survive alone. Abiding with a group is what makes us stronger and helps us prevail. For this main reason, we are urged to communicate. Personal interaction is one of the basic human needs. Over the centuries, people have found numerous ways to stay connected notably by mail, whether it being by transportation or the evolved postal services. But, as time progressed, we as a race started opting for the “fast” and the “efficient”. The human being is never content or satisfied with its environment. We constantly want to evolve and take the second step; to advance. Hence, waiting weeks on end for a reply to our inquiries over handwritten transmitted messages didn’t cut it. We became overly impatient and therefore created new technological inventions to better suit our needs, altering our way of life with three essential devices: the telegraph, the telephone, and the television.  

In the early 20^th century, the telegraph was introduced as the first form of transmitting a message through electric waves. In a few short years between 1857 and 1861 several telegraph companies, spanning the entire U.S., merged into six main controlling systems. “These were the American Telegraph Company, The Western Union Telegraph Company, the New York Albany and Buffalo Electro-Magnetic Telegraph Company, the Atlantic and Ohio Telegraph Company, the Illinois & Mississippi Telegraph Company, and the New Orleans & Ohio Telegraph Company.” ( http://historywired.si.edu/detail.cfm?ID=324) By the time of the Civil War, America felt the need to link its two coasts, East and West with a telegraph line. This need was purely commercially driven. Many of these companies, however, believed that the idea would be impossible to achieve. “[The telegraph] will be the means of strengthening the attachment which binds both the East and the West to the Union” (Diamond, p.229) claimed Stephen Field, chief of justice of California.

“Mr. Watson, come here, I want you”; (Diamond, p.240) the first words ever spoken over a wire. This was the work of Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Thomas Watson. The two worked day and night and did not fall on this discovery by pure chance. They tampered with wires, attempting to transmit sound via electricity understanding first are foremost that “vibrations in iron or steel could be turned into electrical impulses” (Diamond, p.240). On March 7 1876, Graham filed a patent for his “telephone”, a word of Greek origin “tele” meaning “far” and “phone” meaning “voice”. Thanks to Graham’s contribution to society, the impossible was subverted. Many significant calls were placed that marked historical moments in time. Amongst the most noteworthy being the call placed by President Richard Nixon in 1969 to Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong congratulating them on their moon landing mission. (http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/some-of-the-most-famous-phone-calls-in-history-2152067.html)

After having the capacity to send messages through electrical waves and even voice, the next step would ultimately be an image. In 1925 the television first dawned on humanity. A Scottish engineer named John Logie Baird succeeded in being the first to transmit the first live image over airwaves using a device he named “the televisor”. Earlier television-like devices had been based on a previously patented invention called the “scanning disk”, introduced by a German by the name of Paul Nipkow. “Riddled with holes, the large disk spun in front of an object while a photoelectric cell recorded changes in light. Depending on the electricity transmitted by the photoelectric cell, an array of light bulbs would glow or remain dark.” (http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/television.htm) Though Nipkow's system couldn’t scan and in turn deliver a clear, live image, most inventors attempted to refine the essential idea and even the invention itself. After many years of “patent wars” between companies such as RCA (Radio Corporation of America) and BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) who aimed at taking this new invention and reaping all the financial benefits from it, Baird decided to head back to his lab and develop a “high-resolution CRT (cathode-ray tubes) scanner for color television” (Diamond, p. 305).

These three technological advances in communication: the telegraph, telephone, and television implied many reciprocal effects on society.  With the rise of these devices, the entire world has now been connected. Everyone is now accustomed to the anywhere, anytime lifestyle. We are now constantly informed and tied into this overwhelming web where everyone is but a phone call away, which has both beneficial and detrimental effects.  On a positive note, all three have always led to enormous economical secondary effects; shifting investment, direct business, and industry. Communications, therefore became a whole new market to explore. This ultimately gave rise to several businesses, fields of work and study. With this in mind, it is crucial to remember that the inventors of such fine apparatuses never truly got the chance to enjoy the outcome of their hard work. When a device with such potential is released, businesses and other hierarchies step in, pay out the inventor, and consequently perfect and sell it to the grand public. Nevertheless, these discoveries have propelled the world into a technological age, where mass media emerged. Now, not only is there possibility for advertisement, but for instant transmission of any sort of information. For example, in Europe they can be immediately up to date on international current affairs or anything happening in Canada or the United States of America or anywhere for that matter. We have, in a sense, built a bridge joining all nations so that we all have the possibility to culture ourselves without necessarily globetrotting, and have an overall knowledge of the world that enrobes us. In sum, by tying together the world, we have made it seem smaller than what it really is and made distances appear to be at arm’s reach. We have formed an intangible union.