Technological Evolution - Week 8

 Technological Evolution

Week 8, Video Task

This week’s blog required us to watch 5 different videos in relation to the evolution of technology, the history, and the future of the media and digital world. Living in the 21st Century is a privilege to have so much technology at our hands in our day-to-day life. 

 [Reference: “Technology Evolution | 100,000 BC - 2020” - WatchMedia

Technology Evolution | 100,000 BC - 2020]

In this video, we are shown the discoveries of many different things throughout the years from something as simple as fire to supercomputers. It is really fascinating to see when things were discovered as the ages also changed. I find it very impressive how humanity has developed in the time that we have been given. 

[Reference: “History of Media Literacy, Part 1: Crash Course Media Literacy #2” - CrashCourse

History of Media Literacy, Part 1: Crash Course Media Literacy #2]

In this video, Jay spoke a lot about where media literacy was rooted from. I found this information quite insightful and interesting to see what has changed and what hasn’t in the 21st century.

Media literacy didn’t really become a thing until the 1960s. It was more the work of communications scholars and media professionals. Thinking about communication was led by philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, linguists, and critical theorists. This then resulted in many people being illiterate. 

Plato was a classical Greek philosopher and one day his teacher, Socrates, and his friend, Phaedrus were having a debate on which is the best way to give a speech. Socrates thought that the biggest problem in Greek society is writing things down. He thought that leaving words on paper would encourage others to use them out of context and that in person, people could defend their words and thoughts. To this day, he isn’t wrong, so many things on the internet and social media can be interpreted in a million different ways.

For many centuries, information was shared by word of mouth, and hand-written media such as letters were shared mainly by the rich. This was because handmade manuscripts were expensive and time-consuming. This all changed when Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable type printing press in 1452. This made print media easier and faster to produce which in turn made media cheaper and more people became literate. This was a huge problem for people in power such as the government or the church since before, people trusted what was being said. 

Soon after, the newspaper became the world’s first mass media. In the early 1800s, the newspaper started to become a democratizing force. Publishers were getting lots of money from the newspapers being sold. This led to yellow journalism. This is essentially misleading headlines, faked interviews, and exaggerated stories since publishers prioritised sensationalism over journalistic ethics.

 

Jay states at the end of the video that yellow journalism reminds us of what happens when we rely on the media. In my opinion, I think that relying solely on media can be very dangerous.

[Reference: “History of Media Literacy, Part 2: Crash Course Media Literacy #3” - Crash Course

History of Media Literacy, Part 2: Crash Course Media Literacy #3]

This video was part two of the previous one. In this one, Jay talked about the different types of media that became popularised and the concerns that came along with it.

In the 20th century, around the peak of the penny press wars, first motion pictures were shown in the 1890s. A few decades after, radio brought the news, music and much more into people’s homes. Television sets did the same in the 1950s and then just 40 years after, personal computers and the internet revolutionised the media world. 

In each step forward in technology, new challenges rose with media literacy. In the 20th century, people started to worry if people had too much media unlike back in Plato’s time, they worried that they didn’t have enough media. 

With all the media that was being developed, protectionism became a thing. David Buckingham states that protectionism comes in different forms such as cultural defensiveness, political defensiveness and moral defensiveness.

Cultural defensiveness is “certain types of media are said to have less cultural values than others”. TV was a big target of this. When it got popular in the 50s and 60s, academics and educators thought it would rot everyone’s brain.

Political defensiveness is “where the people must be protected from the false beliefs and ideologies”. This is used when someone is worried that the media might be secretly swaying opinions or promoting propaganda. 

Moral defensiveness is “where the effect of sex, violence, and consumerism in media are the biggest concern”. This essentially focuses on the content of media and their ability to corrupt young minds. This led to moral panics.

In the 1960s, there was a huge modern shift in media literacy. People started to argue that empowering students to use media could help them navigate in the real world. Marshall McLuhan was a big part in this shift. He also theorised that the way we communicate is more important than what we communicate.

I found these videos really interesting since I had never really thought about the history of media literacy. It is fascinating to see how much has changed over the past centuries and decades.

An image from the TehranTimes paper