EVOLUTION AND AGES OF
MEDIA Media and Information Literacy
Learning Objectives:
1) Examine the technology or resources
available during the prehistoric age, the
industrial age, the electronic age, and
the new or digital age.
Learning Objectives:
2) Identify the devices used by people
to communicate with each other, store
information, and broadcast information
across the different ages.
If the Titanic sank
somewhere in the
Atlantic Ocean,
how do you think
the news reached
people in England
and New York at
that time?
THE SINKING OF RMS TITANIC ON
APRIL 14, 1912
GUGLIELMO
TELEGRAPH MARCONI
Morse Code
Image 1
Italian Physicist and Inventor
“If the Titanic sank today,
in what format would
people receive or read the
news?
EVOLUTION & AGES OF MEDIA
1700s)
Pre-Industrial Age (Before
Industrial Age (1700s-1930s)
Electronic Age (1930s-1980s)
Information Age (1900s-2000s)
Pre-Industrial Age
(Before 1700s)
People discovered fire, developed
paper from plants, and forged
weapons and tools with stone,
bronze, copper and iron.
ave paintings (35,000 BC)
-dating back to
Paleolithic era,
meaning from
the Stone Age
-made with either
red or black
Cave painting in South Africa pigments
-Cave painting is generally considered to
have a symbolic or religious function
-The exact meanings of the cave
paintings remain unknown
-Experts also believe that these cave arts
were created within the framework of
shamanic beliefs and practices
Clay tablet (2400 BC)
-originated in Mesopotamia
-inscribed with cuneiform script
in Akkadian, Sumerian languages,
etc.
-made from plentiful muds in the
banks of Rivers Tigris and Euphrates
-used to list people’s names
-used to record and document
everything – their crops, workmen,
daily transactions, stories, and their
history
Papyrus in Egypt (2500 BC)
-made from a papyrus plant
-mainly used as a writing material Papyrus plants are
such as hieroglyphics of ancient abundant across the
Nile Delta river
Egyptians
-used as letters and government
records (in ancient Egypt), literary
works (in Ancient Greeks &
Romans
A papyrus Pierre Tallet found at
Wadi al-Jarf
-also known as Acta
Popidi or Acta
Publica
-carved on stone or
metal
Acta Diurna in
-posted in public
Rome (130 BC)
places
Acta Diurna contains serious
news of importance for the
Roman populace, such as
results of legal proceedings
and outcomes of trials.
Dibao in China (2 nd
Century)
KAI YUAN ZA BAO (Bulletin of the Court)
-official government
newspaper published by
the Chinese central
government
One of the earliest newspapers that was handwritten on silk
Woodblock printing (220 AD)
-medium used for
centuries to create
art, signage, and
prints.
-first used in China to
print on paper and
cloth The Great Wave Off Kanagawa by
Katsushika Hokusai
(7 Century) Buddhists used woodblocks
th
to create religious documents
-the practice spread to Korea, India,
Japan, and the Islamic World to print
religious passes
Codex in the Mayan region (5th Century)
-a book-type
material used by the
Maya that was
destroyed in the
mid-sixteenth
century by Six sheets of the Dresden Codex (pp. 55-59, 74) depicting
eclipses, multiplication tables and the flood
Franciscan
missionaries.
-The three surviving codices were
named after the European cities which
they are kept in, namely; Dresden,
Paris, Madrid
-codices were made from the inner
bark of fig trees
-used for setting dates for rituals,
contains list of numbers to predict
lunar and solar eclipses, phases of the
moon, and movements of Mars and
Venus
-also used to list dates and glyphs that
pertain to omens and augury
