A HISTORY OF MEDIA

A TIMELINE
 Communication is an integral part of all animals, whether
200,000BC that be for communicating danger, calling for a mate, or
threatening other beings. It is also still acknowledged that
there are multiple universal languages- violence and
THE BIRTH OF laughter, for example. It is difficult to tell when humans
first began a coherent form of speech as our first
HUMAN standardised communication between communities, as
SPEECH the voice box and the bone that suspends it rot away over
time. However, it is generally accepted that the first
recognisable form of speech originated roughly
200,000BC
 The most common subjects in cave paintings are large
40,000BC wild animals such as bison, horses, and deer, which were
all large animals and were suitable for hunting by humans
(though may not have necessarily been hunted, according
to the bone deposits in the caves.) In colour, the pigments
THE OLDEST used included red, yellow, ochre, hematite, manganese
SURVIVING CAVE oxide, and charcoal, which were all somewhat naturally
occurring in the world around the ancient men. The
PAINTINGS handprints around the paintings are both male and
female hands. Anthropologists have theorised that the
paintings could be a form of hunting magic to increase
the abundance of prey, or a way of recording visions.
 3500BC The first form of writing was developed by the Sumerians
in Mesopotamia, and was called cuneiform (meaning
‘wedge-shaped’) writing. These were pictographs of
FIRST DEVELOPED accounts written on clay tablets carved while the paint
was still drying. This is a form of proto-writing, consisting
WRITING IN of visible marks that communicate limited information,
MESOPOTAMIA using ideographic symbols to represent a limited number
of concepts rather than the language of the writer
themselves
 3200BC Probably the most well-known form of proto-writing, the
formal Egyptian writing system of hieroglyphs were used
in Ancient Egypt by combining logographic, syllabic, and
EGYPTIANS alphabetic elements with a grand total of around 1,000
DEVELOP distinct characters. Read from right to left, hieroglyphs
could be written in cursive as well as standard, though
HIEROGLYPHIC cursive hieroglyphs were traditionally only used for
WRITING religious literature on papyrus or wood. Each character of
the hieroglyphs had a cultural or religious significance as
well as being a logographic symbol.
 The Phoenician alphabet, also known as the Proto-
Canaanite alphabet, consisted of 22 letters, all consonants,
with matres lectionis ( a combination of Hebrew
1050BC consonants to represent vowels). The alphabet is based on
sounds which is where the word ‘phonetics’ comes from.
PHOENICIANS The Phoenician alphabet is derived from the hieroglyphs,
DEVELOP THE and became one of the most widely used writing systems
as the Phoenician merchants travelled across the
FIRST ALPHABET Mediterranean world. This one alphabet led to the
BASED ON development of the Paleo-Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic,
Modern Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Cyrillic, Runic, and Coptic
SOUND alphabets. Phoenicians wrote right to left usually, though
some wrote in a boustrophedon form. (going left to right
on one line, then right to left on the next, snaking
downwards.)
 900BC The first postal service originated in China, used only for
the Chinese government during the Zhou Dynasty in the
1st millennium BC. It was integrated into the larger
Chinese and Mongolian society during the Yuan Dynasty
THE FIRST under Kublai Khan around the 12th century. Postal
POSTAL SERVICE historians have found letter dating back slightly earlier,
but no postal system was as organised or as closely
resembling the system that we have today as that of the
first service in China.
 776BC

The first use of homing pigeons were in Ancient Greece,

FIRST RECORDED and they were used to proclaim the winner of the
USE OF HOMING Olympics to people across Athens. Flying homing
pigeons was also acknowledged as a sport.
PIGEONS
 305
Woodblock printing was the first technique for printing
text, images, or patterns, and originated in China as a
WOODBLOCK method of printing on cloth before being spread and
PRINTING used widely throughout East Asia, with the earliest
surviving pieces dating back before 220AD
 The movable type for printing paper books was made of
1049 porcelain materials and was invented in China during the
Northern Song Dynasty by the inventor Bi Sheng. The
metal movable printing press was then introduced in
FIRST MOVABLE Europe in around 1450 and developed further and faster
due to the small number of alphabetic characters needed
TYPE INVENTED for the European languages. Both of these developed due
IN CHINA to the need to communicate faster than woodblock
printing, and the metal type pieces were more durable
and the letters more uniform and legible than the wooden
blocks.
 Though government newspapers were published in
1450 Ancient Rome, newspapers as we know them today began
to appear in Venice around 1450-1500, and were
handwritten newsletters used to convey political, military,
NEWSPAPERS and economic news quickly and efficiently to Italian cities.
However, an even more familiar style of newspaper began
APPEAR IN emerging in the 17th century, in close connection with the
EUROPE spread of the printing press, and Germany took over the
newspaper publishing game, officially being recognised
as the first newspaper due to the public nature of the
content.
 1826
The earliest surviving photograph was taken by Joseph
Nicephore Piepce in either 1826 or 1827, depicting the
view from an upstairs window at the Niepce’s estate in
THE FIRST Burgundy, France. Using heliography, a form of
PHOTOGRAPH lithographic printmaking, the picture is the earliest
surviving example of a photo taken with what we now
recognise as a camera.
 1876 Alexander Graham Bell patented the first practical and
electric telephone, though the first actual telephone was
invented by Antonio Meucci. Bell was an appointed
professor of vocal physiology in 1873 and his fascinated
THE FIRST research into the idea of transmitting speech led him to
TELEPHONE invent a simple reciever that could turn electricity into
sound. He is credited with the invention of the telephone
as he handed in his patent for the device first, beating
Elisha Gray to the post.
 1877 Thomas Edison was attempting to improve the telegraphic
transmitter when he ended up inventing the phonograph,
recording and playing his own messages. The first
message recorded was “Mary had a little lamb” as a
THE FIRST tester, and many people had a hard time believing his
PHONOGRAPH discovery of recording and transmitting the voice. Edison
became known, rather sharply, as ‘The Wizard of Menlo
Park’ after the name of the city of New Jersey where he did
his work.
 1906
On December 24th, the first ever radio broadcast for
entertainment and music was transmitted from
Massachusetts, achieved after years of work by Reginald
FIRST RADIO Aubrey Fessenden, building a complete system of
BROADCAST wireless transmission using AM technology. This
revolutionised mass-broadcasting of messages, and
created the booming business of radio
 1926 The first show to be broadcast on television was a blurry,
black and white image of a ventriloquist dummy in Joh
Logie Baird’s workshop in London, using a new
FIRST electromechanical TV system. The shot was broadcast live
for the members of the Royal Institution of Great Britain as
TELEVISION part of the unveiling of Baird’s research, and is the first
BROADCAST example of moving images broadcast via radio waves, an
example that was completely disregarded before Baird’s
demonstration.
 The Internet’s development was furthered significantly
1969 faster after the Russian space probe ‘Sputnik’ began
orbiting the Earth. Scientists and military experts urged
developers and mathematicians to find a way to transmit
data from one computer to another. In 1969, ARPAnet
FIRST USE OF delivered the first message of communication, a short and
THE INTERNET simple message saying only ‘LOGIN’, though it still
crashed the network anyway. The Stanford computer it
was sent to only received the note’s first two letters, but it
was considered a revolutionary advancement for
technology.
 1992
The first text message was sent on December 3rd, saying
only “Merry Christmas” on a computer and being sent to
FIRST TEXT the cellphone of the Vodafone director Richard Jarvis.
Though the first text message is only 26 years old, this
MESSAGE technology would revolutionise communication to the
point where it was near instant over thousands of miles.