How Has Social Media Changed Over Time

On September 11, 2001 millions of Americans tuned their televisions to see the heartbreaking news of was happening in New York City. On November 13, 2015 people across the world were using the hashtag “#prayforparis” to show their support for Paris on that devastating Friday evening. This shows how even in the short time of 14 years that the way people absorb their news and media has changed over time. Through out history media has been published by an elite few, this caused limited information to be published. Now with the industry changing because of the use of social media and the internet, the power to publish is in the hands of anyone who wants it. Social media is changing the way people connect around the world for the better such as

The first medium of media was the book. As the printing press was developed and it was easier as well as cheaper to print the newspaper came into existence. In 1844 Samuel Morse laid the first telegraph line. Newspapers saw how telegraph lines good help them get information over long distances quicker. It would have been too expensive for one company to subsidies a telegraph wire so, 6 newspapers formed “The Associated Press.” These newspapers paid for the construction of telegraph lines and became the biggest customers for the telegraph companies. The Associated Press signed exclusive contracts so that rival newspapers could not use the telegraph lines. Newspapers were not in The Associated Press received information later and they were no longer as popular as the big six. In 1894 Guglielmo Marconi invented the wireless telegraph, also known as the radio. The radio expanded communication to new horizons because wires, no longer had to be run from point A to point B. After WWII The United States wanted to gain control of the radio industry so they created the first legalized monopoly, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), in 1919. RCA owned all the radio parts and was in charge of the sale of hardware and equipment. This monopoly put other radio corporations such as American Marconi out of

Radio was the first form of broadcast media and later television became a broadcast medium, then the internet came along and it is a broadcast medium, but it’s a little bit different. Internet is a segmented medium rather than a mass medium. There are so many choices for the viewers that producers focus on a target group rather than a mass group. Whereas in television and radio they broadcast to the population as a whole. What made internet revolutionary though, was social media. Social media gave people a way to broadcast, like radio and television, to their friends and family, or large numbers of people. Being able to broadcast like this makes for rapid spread of information. As soon as something happens in someone’s life they can post it online. This can be fun for things like pictures and life updates, but it can also be more serious. On October 27, 2015 there were reports of a gunman on campus at the University of Incarnate Word. Students immediately began posting on social media such as, twitter and yik yak, about what was happening on campus. UIW also sent out an official lock down notice out on their twitter account. Once parents found out about what was happening, they then began to post on their social media. The news of what was happening on campus was spreading extremely fast; by the time the news was covering the gunman they were