PREHISTORIC AGE

Media and Information Literacy Presentation

• Prehistoric Age
 Back when there were no newspapers, radio and
television around, people found ways to tell a story.
Humans shared information by talking and making
sounds, and it developed into something later on. The
prehistoric age of media basically consisted of records
created by our ancestors, long even before writing was
even invented. They have made use of stone tools to craft
and thus leave a record of their lives back in the old days.
 The first traditional communication tools came in the form
of art – the music and poetry spoken, the images and
scriptures which our ancestors had written to pass
relevant knowledge to the future generation. The simple
talking and symbols evolved into something more
complex in order to meet the needs of the society.
 The Egyptians, for instance, were among the first to use symbols as a
form of written communication. There was also the cuneiform used by
the Sumerians, which they used not just to jot down important details,
but also to write relevant literature, among them the famous Epic of
Gilgamesh. Later on, ancient civilizations used written communication
in order to make the trade more convenient. This is what the
Phoenicians became well-known for a society that survives through
trade, they formed the alphabet which was adopted by the Greeks,
who further developed it by adding vowels. The spread of news was
mainly by mouth; not everyone was able to read or write, hence there
were heralds who announce relevant events.
 In the Philippines, the umalokohan or town crier served as the messenger
to the people, making them aware of new laws or policies implemented
by the datu.

 Rome and China began to develop their own forms of written news.
Rome’s written news came in the form of acta, their daily handwritten
news sheets, which were posted by the Roman Forum to inform people of
subjects such as political events, trials, scandals military campaigns and
executions, China, on the other hand, have the tipao, which were
government-produced new sheets circulated among officials during the
Han dynasty.
 Media and literacy further evolved as technology had improved. Back in the
Medieval Age, books and other reading materials were written by hand, hence
there were limited number of literary materials which were mainly accessible to
the clergy and the nobles.

 The German metallurgist Johannes Gutenberg was known for creating an

important milestone in the history of printing: the movable metal type, a relevant
invention that helped in the development of mass communication. While printing
has been a known technology in eastern Asia since the ancient times, it was
around mid-1440s in Europe that the mass production of words became possible
for the first time. By 1500s, there were around 40,000 books published all over
Europe. This revolutionary invention made it possible for more people to learn.