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History of Communication Center

BACK to Ontario Media Literacy Homepage
WIINDMILL PRESS (Canadian publisher of media literacy books and resources)

Welcome to the History of Communication Center! Most of the information you'll find here is taken from Bill Jawitz's excellent media literacy textbook Understanding Mass Media (National Textbook Company, 1996).

The amount of technological change that takes place in a set number of years almost doubles. For example, from 1850 to 1950, the United States experienced tremendous growth in the area of communications, factory production, medicine, and almost every other technology-based industries. Since 1950, we have matched that amount of technological growth in less than half as many years! And predictions are that the 20-year period from 1990 to 2010 will bring another doubling of technological change!

Clearly, we live in an era of human history where huge changes take place from one generation to the next. We take granted the fact that hwe use technologies our grandparents didn't have, and that our children will use technologies that don't yet exist. Yet the pace of change was not always this fast. It was often hundreds of years and many generations between technological advancements. The following timeline presents some of the highlights in the development of communications technologies: