Page 76 - Effective Communication Soft Skills Strategies For Success by Nitin Bhatnagar, Mamta Bhatnagar

Project Name: Manual for Soft Skills
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It was only about 5,000 years ago that human beings made the transition
into the age of writing. ‘The skill was invented independently in several places
in the world at various times. This important ability to communicate using
written symbols spread slowly over the centuries as alphabets became increas-
ingly standardized and as lighter and more portable surfaces became available.
The printing press and the process of manufacturing paper were important
technological advances that eventually led to the use of print as a mass medium.’
(Lewis and De Fleur 1983)

The Print Media

We entered the Age of Print approximately in 1455, in the city of Mainz,
when a press with moveable type was set up. Books, of course, were the
oldest print medium, but by their very nature of dependency on literacy,
they remained a medium for the elite for centuries. They had to wait till the
nineteenth century to become and remain the most respected mass medium
till today, when they are read as textbooks, as contributions of the literature
of the times, and as scientific reference works.
Again it was not until 1834 that the first daily newspaper was brought
out in New York. Soon when the experiment was successful, other imitators
followed suit and, in a few years along with industrialization there was a daily
newspaper in every major city in the western world and the Age of Mass
Communication was ushered in. And they held their sway over the mass
society till the birth of the movies and the growth of broadcasting. Unlike
books, magazines had a greater readership, but were latecomers into the field
of mass communication. They catered to specialized tastes, and their profit-
ability and continuance therefore, became unpredictable.

The moDern age

The Era of Technological Inventions
Telegraphy and Telephony

The first telegraphic message was transmitted in 1844 between Washington
D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland. Samuel Morse sent this message through a
copper wire. Sir Charles Wheatstone and Samuel Morse discovered telegraph
in 1840 which opened a new era in communications. Alexander Graham
Bell sent the first telephone message by wire. Again in 1895, when the waves
could be successfully converted into coded signals, Marconi and Popoff
succeeded independent of each other in transmitting and receiving wireless
messages across vast distances.

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