FROM WRITINGS ON THE WALL TO

SIGNALS TRAVELING IN THE AIRWAVES:

INTRODUCTION
• Communal gatherings were means by
which they reached out to each other
as a collective, and they spoke to one
another using song, dance, and
prayer.
FROM PAPYRUS TO PAPER
• It was the Christians who invented the codex
around AD 100, a document which can be
rightfully referred to as the prototype of a book.
Papyrus pages facing one another were bound
together instead of rolled up for easy reading,
because it only meant flipping the pages instead
of unraveling a long papyrus.
• Johann Gutenberg invented the printing
technology that would eventually be called the
movable type machine.
• The Gutenberg machine was a frame that could
hold the type covered in ink on one place.
Afterwards, a piece of paper would be placed on
top. The Bible was one of Gutenberg’s earliest
and most famous creations.
• The Gutenberg printing process launched for
what could be considered as the first medium
truly designed for the masses. The printed
material that Europeans saw and became part of
their lives radically altered the church, science,
arts, and politics, accelerating developments that
would see its pinnacle in the Industrial
Revolution of the 17 th century.
• The first book printed in the Philippines is
believed to be Doctrina Cristiana, a treatise on
the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church,
written by Fray Juan Plasencia, and Augustinian
priest.
NATION STATES AND THE RISE OF
NEWSPAPERS
• The first newspapers were patronized by
merchants. In the late 1600s, England’s
monarchy was subsumed under a parliament ,
and the compelling need to accelerate its
commerce and naval activities made newspapers
a regular feature. By 1700, the idea of free press,
independent from the control of the
government, emerged as a strong rhetoric
against authoritarian states.
• McQuail cites that newspaper is a more a significant
innovation than a book. It was a new literary with
social and cultural form that catered to town-based
businesses and professional people, a new class
emerging in Western Europe. It provided a new
function for a distinct class that will give rise to
developments in the economic sphere, specifically
industrialization, and the rise of the nation-state. He
also cites the ff. defining features: regular
appearance, commercial circulation, serving
multiple purposes, and its irrefutably public
character.
• Prehistoric Age – People discovered fire,
developed paper from plants and forged
equipment or weapon through stone, bronze,
copper and iron.
• Industrial Age – People used the power of
steam, developed machine tools, established
iron production and manufacturing of various
products (including books through the printing
press).
• Electronic Age – People harnessed the power
of electricity that led to electrical telegraphy,
electrical circuits and the early large scale
computers (through vacuum tubes, transistors
and integrated circuits). In this age, long
distance communication became possible.
• New (Digital) Age – People advanced the use
the microelectronics in the invention of personal
computers, mobile devices and wearable
technology. In this age, the Internet paved the
way for faster communication and the creation
of the social network. Moreover, voice, image,
sound and data are digitalized.
AGES What devices What devices What devices
did people did people use did people use
use to to store to share or
communicate information? broadcast
with each information?
other?
Prehistoric
Age
Industrial Age

Electronic
Age
New (Digital)
Age