Page 176 - Convergent Journalism an Introduction Writing and Producing Across Media

MULTIMEDIA ADVERTISING

The government stepped in and created the Pure Food and Drug Act
in 1906, protecting consumers by regulating advertising against false
claims of medical benefits. It was an inauspicious start for a new form
of paid communications that would forever be subject to regulators’
and public scrutiny.

A New Electronic Mass Medium Is Born

Radio became the first electronic mass medium, evolving in the 1920s
from the wireless technology that was first used to communicate with
ships at sea. By the end of the Roaring ’20s, radio was on its way to
becoming the dominant medium of the time.
The Great Depression thrust radio into its role of media prominence,
partly because it was the first “free” media. With unemployment rates
hovering near 20 percent during much of the 1930s, many families
couldn’t afford to buy newspapers or magazines. In contrast, once a
family purchased a radio, it had access to unlimited free entertainment
and news via the airwaves.
166 It was during radio’s golden age in the 1930s that advertising was
able to expand beyond its print heritage. A new form of advertising—
the commercial—was developed for radio and became the key revenue
source for the medium. The term soap opera was coined as a result of
the advertising by Procter & Gamble, which used radio programs to
sell laundry soaps to housewives.
During the same period, highways began to roll across the country,
making billboard and roadway signs an effective advertising medium.
With new roads and reliable transportation, families could travel
greater distances. Billboards told these travelers about motels, gas
stations, restaurants, and tourist locations along the way.
At the New York City World’s Fair in 1939, a new technology
was introduced to the public that would revolutionize advertising and
change media usage forever. Broadcast television’s debut was less than
spectacular by today’s standards. Hazy black-and-white images show-
ing visitors to the RCA TV exhibit were broadcast to a few hundred
people who had TV receivers in New York. It would be two more years
before TV became an advertising medium.
World War II delayed the growth of television into America’s house-
holds, but by 1946, the postwar Baby Boom was under way and TV
began entertaining a recovering nation. TV helped growing families
learn about new products, much like print advertising had done in