The World of Mass Media
From Its Beginning To Its Predicted State In 2020

The History of Mass Media
The birth of the mass media begins with print media, which includes books, magazines and newspapers. Books are considered the oldest form of media as it exists since the invention of writing systems and they were copied by hand till middle 15th century. Books were used mostly to store religious and sacred writings, so they were hardly considered as a mass medium. As time passed, the techniques of printing were developed. Many sources claimed that the world's earliest dated printed book was known as "Diamond Sutra". It was printed in China in 868 A.D. using woodblock printing technique. However, it has been said that many books were published way before this time. Around 1040 A.D., the world's first known movable type system for printing was invented in China. China made little use of their invention because literacy was not widespread, so there was little demand for mass printing of books.
But the printing technology was spread rapidly across Europe. In 1400 A.D., a German goldsmith, Johannes Gutenberg had invented printing press machine with movable type which allowed books to be reproduced in masses. The first book printed with this technique is The Bible. With the printing press technology, books can be printed quickly and with less effort, hence the cost of bookmaking reduced and this made books available for a much bigger audience. The invention of printing technology has a dramatic impact on the Europe civilization. As information and ideas were able to be spread more quickly and accurately, it helped spread literacy in public. Nevertheless, books were not regarded as a mass medium for at least a century.
Besides that, printing press also gave rise to the development of newspapers. The newspaper was developed around 1600. Nieuwe Tidingen was one of the first newspapers published in Europe in 1605. Most of the early newspapers were used for spreading information, commerce, international trade news and information as well as local news. Newspapers were not yet considered as a mass medium until the 19th century. Newspapers continue to evolve and now it has become more user-friendly and lifestyle oriented to fulfill readers' needs.
Another great mass media are the telegraph, which was invented by Samuel Morse and other inventors. Samuel Morse invented the Morse Code and he was the one who sent the first telegraph message in 1844. By 1866, cables had been laid across the Atlantic Ocean and telegrams can be sent between the United States and Europe, making it easier for people to communicate. The telegraph became an important communication system and was used to transmit long distance message. However, in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone which brought changes to the field of communication. Unlike telegraphs, which could only send and receive one message at a time, telephones allow two ways communications because it acts as the transmitter and receiver.
Radio was considered the earliest "modern" mass media as it was able to reach larger audience instantly. In 1895, Guglielmo Marconi developed the basic technology underlying radio and was the one who sent and receive the first radio signal. However, Nikola Tesla was acknowledged as the first person to patent the radio technology as the US Supreme Court overturned Marconi's patent in 1943. The radio technology has become a source of information and entertainment for the public. It also became a dominant form of media during and after World War II. This is because information can spread much faster than print media.
Television was invented by John Logie Baird in 1925. Philo T Farnsworth was the first person to transmit a television image in 1927. Television's popularity grew more rapidly than radio because of its unique characteristic. The world's first full color film - Flower and Trees - was produced by Walt Disney in 1932. Around 1960s, television had dominated the political world. Politicians used television as a tool to advertise their campaigns.
Today, the Internet has become the most popular mass medium because of its capability of connecting the world together. Before that, ARPANET, a computer network, which has contributed to the birth of the Internet, was established by the US Defense Advance Research Project Agency (ARPA) in 1969. Back then, it was used to link many universities and research centers. The main purpose was to distribute information to the linked computers that were geographically dispersed. Tim Berners-Lee was the father of the Internet. He was the one who created one of the greatest creations of mankind and that is the World Wide Web (WWW). With the Internet, information is easily accessible as it is the largest encyclopedia available for everyone. It is also used for business and commerce purposes.

Review of Additional Resources
Augmented Reality as a New Medium
For the past 500 years, the invention of several great mass media, from the Gutenberg printing press to the Internet, has revolutionized people's way of life and human communication. Tomi Ahonen, an expert on mobile media predicts that the next great mass media, the 8th mass medium would be a technology called the Augmented Reality (AR). The augmented reality refers to the technology that offers view of the real physical world, with the integration of the digital information at real time. What the augmented reality technology does is it utilizes the camera and GSP built into your smartphones or computer to gather the information about the surroundings around us and then uses the device's Internet connection to gather additional information about the thing around us. The additional information will be displayed on the screen of the device as if it is physically there in the environment in front of us. It is the combination of the views of the real world and the views generated by the computer. This is not a science fiction. It has started out in 2009 and has been used in computers and smartphone device like iPhone. Besides that, Google also applied the augmented reality technology in their latest invention, Project Glass. It is a pair of glass with built-in computer in the frame of it. This device has similar functions of smartphones which allows users to send messages, video chat, take photos and share it on social media, enable access to maps and the Web. Tomi Ahonen said that the virtual reality and augmented reality are starting to come together. An interesting application of the augmented reality and virtual reality can be found in Hong Kong. The iButterfly, is an iPhone app developed by Dentsu, Japan's largest advertising agency. It was introduced in Hong Kong in April 2011 and this is an interesting way to advertise and promote products and has provided users with a whole new entertainment experience. This application uses the augmented reality to take a video feed from your phone's camera and overlay it with digital information, in this case, a butterfly. When users caught the "butterfly", it will turn into valuable coupons and can be used to get discount for items in the selected stores. Tomi Ahonen further explained that the augmented reality is not a niche market anymore. It has become a mass market because of its popularity. The iButterfly alone already has 300,000 users and in 2011, there are already more than 5 million augmented reality users. According to Tomi Ahonen, by the year 2020, there will be around 1 billion augmented reality users and this technology might become the next form of mass media in the future. This is twice the number of the world's newspaper circulation which is only 450 million. In the future, augmented reality media will become more advance and will be used not only in smartphones and computers but it will also be applied on glasses and other technologies as well. Augmented reality will not only be in visual form but also in the form of sound.

The Future of Television: Holographic TV
The television has been evolving for the past two decades. But there will be an even greater changes in the future. Scientists and developers has been exploring and developing a new form of television that can projects three-dimensional image that floats in the middle of the air - the holographic television. The uniqueness of this television is that you can enjoy watching the displayed image at every angle without the need of 3D glasses. The Japanese TV Network, NHK is determined to launch the first ever holographic television by 2020. Japan has allocated around £2.8billion in this project and offers to broadcast the 2022 World Cup game in holographic form as part of their 2022 World Cup bid. Each match will be captured from every degree (360 °) with 200 high definition cameras. The footage will then be transmitted as three-dimensional images and will be projected onto every football fields around to world, giving viewers an illusion of being in the real match. Japan also planned to capture the sounds of the game by installing microphones below the pitch where the actual game will be taking place. Professor Jun Murai, from Kei University said that this whole idea may seems like it is implausible to achieve, but he hoped that the technology will be available by 2016. The holographic technology seems to have a great progress because there have already been breakthroughs in this field of holographic. In 2008, researchers at the University of Arizona made the first updatable 3D holographic displays with memory. Dr Nasser Peyghambarian stated that this discovery is extremely important and is required for the development of any moving type holographic technology. Currently, the prototype's display changes once every few minutes. But in order to make holographic television works, the image would need to be changing several times in a second. According to Dr Nasser Peyghambarian, the current model only display one colour and it was only 4 inches by 4 inches. He further explained that scientists and researchers are trying to make improvements to the current model, making it to three colours instead of one and increasing the size of the display to the size of a computer screen. According to Dr Peyghambarian, holographic television can be built as a flat screen on the wall that projects 3D images that seems to come out of the wall; or it could be a screen on a coffee table that projects the 3D images up from the table.

The Future of Mass Media
In a recent TEDx event which took place in MongKong, Hong Kong, Tomi Ahonen introduced the 8th mass media which is the augmented reality technology. It is really fascinating to see that the real world and digital world are able to join together. I do agree with his statement because it has already proven that augmented reality is capable of reaching mass audience, by achieving 5 million users in just a short period of time. In my opinion, augmented reality can play its role as a mass media by facilitating communication because it is really engaging and interactive. It also plays important role in the future of marketing and advertising. This is because it offers interesting way for companies to engage and communicate with their customers, thus enabling companies to build a much closer relationship with their customers. A great example would be the augmented reality app for iphone - iButterfly. The application of augmented reality in this app is just a smart way to promote a company's product because it helps improve their consumers' experience and satisfaction and thus creates a strong brand loyalty. Mass media is also about sharing and receiving information. With the augmented reality as mass media, it allows us to access constant streams of information whenever and wherever we are.
The future of television seems very exciting because researchers are bringing the development of television to a whole new level with the invention of holographic television which can project 3D images in mid-air. Holographic television is able provides a whole new experience of watching television by giving you a truly immersive 3D experience. But I think that it is unnecessary to have a holographic television. For me, holographic television is just a new version of television that has the same uses as regular television. The content of the TV programmes will be the same, it is just that it enhances your viewing experience. However, the holography technology itself can be very useful in the medical field

Reference

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