The idea of mashine able to broadcast both sound and vision goes back to 1875. However, it wasn’t untill 1926 that a Scottish engineer turned the idea into practical reality. Now this invention dominates the modern media.
John Logie Baird produced the first television pictures just eight years after the First World War. They were black and white and not very clear. In fact Baird proved that this principle worked. It was a real breakthrough.
Soon though the original system was improved and in 1936 Britain’s first regular TV programwent on the air. The BBC studious broadcasted “Here is looking at you” twice a day.
Other European nations, including Germany were also involved in the early days of the television. In America TV revolution began after the Second World War.
US TV boomed in the late ‘40s. Commercial stations began to open almost in every city. CBS developed colour service in 1951 and covered the first internanional major event – coronation of Queen Elisabeth the second.
In 60-70 television began to satisfy the public’s desire not just for entertainment, but also for rapid accurate information.
Since 1980 there have been four more major developments.
The first is video, which has given viewers the power to control what thay watch. The second is satellite TV (direct broadcast satellites) which allowed to see specialised programmes – sport, vogue, cartoons. The third is the development of the cable – a system of hi-tech wires, which provide more channels at a price. The fourth is the HDTV (High Definition TV) which offers more realistic picture than was possible earlier.
The next step in this evolution progress is the two-way communication. Therefore, as we can see television has come a long way in a very short time. A hyper-media revolution could happen sooner than many people think. Especially in the light of such new ways of communication as internet.
Internet is a network connecting many computer networks and based on common addressing system. From its creation in 1983 internet grew rapidly into an increasreasingly commercial and popular medium. By the mid-1990’s the internet connected millions of computers throughout the world.
The internet had its origin in a US Deparment of Defence program called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency) to provide secure communications network for organisations engaged in defence-related research. With the course of time, the researchers began to make use of internet and soon an NSF Net was created.
Internet offers cybercafes, e-shops, e-learning, web sites, network games, virtual museums and many other services.
E-mail abbreviation is the message transmitted and received by digital computers through network. E-mail system allows computer users on a network to send and get graphic text, animated images etc. Data can be sent simultaneously to a universe of users.
Returning to television one should point out that the disadvanteges of it worth speaking about. There have been more than 21300 studies on the effects of TV on American society, most of them show that the effects are negative. Children participated in studies intensively watched TV for 3 weeks. The results showed a drop in the kid’s creativity and sense of reality. Children became emotionally dependent.
As for positive influence, there are many educational programmes e.g “Sesame Street” (children enjoy learning alphabet, reading and numbers). TV programmes done with good taste and imagination stimulate a child`s own creativity.
The history of television is being created nowdays….
Deliberate on the following.
1. The programmes we watch mirror our true essence