So last time around, we’ve talked about some major key points when it comes to the ever changing plane that is entertainment. From vaudeville, to cinema, all great things all in their own, but you yet again ask the question, “Where do we go now?” And that comes in the form of people in their new suburban life. Since the end of world war II, a lot of GI’s are entering back into the homefront and are beginning to get settled into new suburban areas. And with that comes a lot of inventions that would help suburban life, so now comes the question whether you can bring the entertainment to the masses, but how can you bring this into the home?
For the longest time, most people have been used to very few sorts of entertainment at the home, whether it be the occasional book or other activity there was one that sort of stood out, and that was that of the radio.
The radio for the most part had been the predominant form of not only entertainment, but for relaying information that simple mediums were not able to bring into the home, and most houses were shown to have that in the sort of staring role for the whole family to enjoy. So now, with all of the advances of technology coming forward, you can only wonder where things are bound to head next.
And that begins with the simple idea of transmitting images from one place to another and being able to view said image. And this is where things started to begin….
Beginning all the way from the 1800s, the idea of transmitting images from one place to another has been a long sought out concept. What with the major advances with photography and the idea of moving images, though somewhat primitive, were going from place to place as we had shown earlier with the early instances of film.
It didn’t really become a breakthrough for a while, mostly due to the limited idea at the time. See, at the time what was normally done to send an image or rather to view an image was to put it on a literal disk for you to view.
I’m not kidding it was a really really old precursor to the Compact Disk, where you have indents in the disk that could be translated into actual images, the only difference is that these images were actually sent through wire to be transmitted. Confused? Here’s a diagram explaining it:
In all reality, what you’re seeing here is the first idea of sending one signal to a device which would bounce it back to the set in order for you to see the image from one location. A modern way of looking at it is sort of faxing images to one spot to be shown to you at a certain speed.
Which is great!
Though not exactly what we would think of as television. The first real use of broadcasted television was done by a scottish inventor by the name of John Logie Baird had actually dabbled in the whole use of television, at one point even successfully broadcasting from London to Glasglow. Nonetheless he is one of the first to actually broadcast images at a distance to another location.
It wasn’t until about 1908 that we began to have a new way of sending images as well a receiving certain images through the television sets although again limited.
Though still at most televison was again limited to very few sets and only a few set channels. IT wasn’t until the 1940s into the 50s that you began to see televisions start to make the market, and let me tell you that people loved the damn things. A whole lot.
From the programs they would watch to the food they ate, television suddenly became a central part of the family living room.
Though, now you may be asking, why in the world is this at all important in my own current life, and to that I have to say, YOU HAVE NO IDEA.
First of all, try and think of the current world without television as the medium that we know it. There would be a real lack of sudden pop culture without any access for it, and I’m not just talking about certain celebrities that would pop up here and there, I’m talking about how you suddenly view politics, view world news, new ideas, television opens up a whole new medium for that. Take the 1950s for example, when it came to the presidential debates there was a real turning point for public opinion. For the longest time they had these debates that would be shown over radio and or in public, so when it came to choosing a president it was a very word centric thing. When then, we have this debate between Nixon and Kennedy and a new factor enters in, looks.
When we look at this here, we see Kennedy, a smiling sort of pretty movie star who looks right into the camera smiles and generally looks pretty great. While Nixon is really sort of melting, he did not look good at all and was sort of in a very long side of the debate. So we have a new way of seeing a candidate to lead a country, their person. You now have to look at a politician and say, ‘Can I trust this person?’ or ‘Does this guy look good?’ and the tables suddenly TURN.
And not only that, in the 1960s, we have a whole new view on warfare! So, we all know about the vietnam conflict, it was years of just loss and terrible terrible warfare, we sing protests, we hate each other and the whole world begins to change. But where does that begin to happen? The home. Suddenly, instead of hearing about great battles and heavy casualties that would splash across the newsprint, we’re suddenly seeing it on late night TV!
We’re suddenly actually seeing the aftermath of war, we’re seeing our soldiers out in the middle of no mans land, and we’re bringing the war home. Opinions change, people start seeing things differently, and there are suddenly spit divides on issues and policies and how things work. We are now seeing what we only would have heard about, is now being brought to the television at home. Even with earlier examples, media can now be used massively as a tool to sway opinions, people now want to know who to believe. There is a sudden hunger for information as we see politicians and how the act in situations, how people react to tragedies, suddenly moments in time can now be seen as they happen. I think most people can remember turning on the television and having their eyes glued to CNN as the 9/11 attacks were going on. We can now see things that are happening as the happen in our own home.
Things take a HUUUGE CHANGE from there. And what’s even weirder, is that the world is now becoming smaller and smaller as we have now seen. And even, is about to get smaller with another HUGE invention…
From the fuuutuure….
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