A few centuries ago people knew only a few kinds of communication. They could speak to each other, they could send their message from one place to another by smoke signals. Our world is very huge and sending a message from America to Asia a hundred years ago was nearly impossible or it took a lot of time. Nowadays we can send the message in a few seconds and it´s very simple.
The first expansion of media was when the radio and television were invented. The second and the biggest boom started in 1960s when the first communication satellite was launched into orbit.
There are 4 main media: Newspapers, TV, Radio and the Internet.
Newspapers are the oldest of mass media. It has been there from the end of the 17th century. They are not flexible because when something happens we can´t read about it until the next day. We can read some newspapers on the Internet too. Newspapers still have their own magic. There are 3 main kinds of newspaper:
- A quality newspaper – There are very big pages and longer articles. There aren´t too much photos. People who read it are businessmen or people with higher education.
- Tabloids – There are smaller pages, short articles and plenty of photos. They are more popular than broad sheets.
- Special interests magazines – They´re issued weekly or monthly and intent on special things like gardening or computers. They´re much more expensive than daily newspapers, but they´re printed in better paper.
TV is maybe the most widespread media in cultivated countries. It´s a media with the biggest strenghts – it can influence us very much because of its moving pictures“. With coming of communication satellites we can choose from variety programs like news, children´s programs or programs with lots of films. They use lots of advertisements, because they want to earn money. Another kinds of programs are discussions, arts, quiz shows or films.
Radio is the second oldest kind of media. Although we nowadays have TV, radio is still very popular. It has lots of advantages:
- We can tak it nearly where we want.