Samenvatting – media in Belgium
Module 1 - 6
Module 1: media and society
1.1: the definition of media
Medium: The tool or channel tat we use for communication
Challenge: how to surpass the barriers in space and time?
1850: start of mass media
first ever medium was the spoken language
1.2: history of media
4 periods:
- Pre-industrial age
- Industrial age
- Electronic age
- New/ information age (digital)
1) pre-industrial age: …-1750
oral tradition handwriting (manuscripts)
- cave drawings
- manuscripts (clay tablets, papyrus, epigraphs,…)
- acta diurna: a Roman ‘newspaper’ (important things, like there’s no
market, …)
letter press and typography (1450)
- letter press invented by Johannes Gutenberg
- = a landmark
- before, monks used to copy everything by hand = very slow
- you don't have to start over when you make a mistake
- but it was still too valuable to print newspapers
- it was still very slow and pretty manual, BUT you could make more
than the monks did
- (Chinese) xylography or block printing (200 B.C.)
Origins of the newspaper
,- pamphlets => out of these, emerged newspapers
- Early 17th century, Germany
o BE: Abraham Verhoeven – Nieuwe Tijdinghe (Antwerp, 1620)
o UK: abolishment of the Licensing Act of 1662 (press freedom)
- you had to be able to read and understand politics
- politics changed, BUT media was still for the elite
1) industrial age: 1750-1930
Mechanization of production processes media evolution
- rotary printing press
- telegraph (news spread with the speed of light)
- telephone
- camera/ movie
19th century: newspaper is no longer an elite, but a mass medium
- Press freedom (Belgian constitution, 1831)
- Increasing literacy and education in society
kids went to school because the parents needed to work
- Industrialisation and technological innovations (printing process,
telegraphy, fall in paper price)
- Rural exodus and increasing concentrations in urban areas
- Changes in social relations and extension of voting rights
- Creation of a lucrative advertising market
- Abolition of the Newspaper and Stamp Duties Act (Belgium, 1848)
Money; from the advertising market
There were around 100 newspapers in BE, now only 10
New government, new constitution => press freedom
NOW: still no tax on newspapers
Golden age of the opinion and sensational press
- End 19th/beginning 20th century
,- America: from ‘penny press’ to yellow press
Penny press = cheap press, 1 cent per newspaper
Yellow press = making the newspaper sensational, to sell more
- (Western-)Europe: ‘pillarization’ (Separation of society into parallel
groups, each with their own hierarchy, based on beliefs NL and
BE!)
- = also reflected on the press: ‘pillarized press’
o Christian Democratic pillar
o Socialist pillar
o Liberal pillar
All newspapers told the opposite
all of these different ideologies=> in which pillar you were born, you
stayed the rest of your life.
!!! Everything was divided, also the press
press was very cheap: scandals,… they sold more
2) electronic age: 1930-1980
invention of the transistor leads to new (analogue) media technologies
and telecommunication
- radio 1940: first radio broadcast
radio Loksbergen,… local radio stations
INR: national radiostation organised by the government
1930: start of VRT
the radio became bilingual
le journal parlé = first spoken newspaper
soaps on the radio
- television NIR – BRT: the government organized this
1953: television in BE
- computer
3) (new) information age: 1980-…
- Development of micro-electronics (small, portable devices)
- Invention of the world wide web (Berners-Lee, 1989)
, - Analogue digital technology (binary values, I or 0)
Technological advantages
- Rapid transferring of content
- No loss of quality, exact copies
- Content can easily be edited
- More compact (less band width and storage space required)
- Enables interactivity and easy ‘sharing’
Our preferred media today
- Smartphones
- Social media
- Streaming
What’s next?
- AI - ChatGPT
- AR - VR bril
1.3: from mass to network society
1) mass society and media
- mid-19th century: media for upper class middle class
Mass: disorganized, anonymous multitude of people, with little
involvement.
Mass media aimed at reaching a large, diverse, dispersed and
'anonymous' audience
- Heterogeneous masses are approached in a rather homogeneous
way
Module 1 - 6
Module 1: media and society
1.1: the definition of media
Medium: The tool or channel tat we use for communication
Challenge: how to surpass the barriers in space and time?
1850: start of mass media
first ever medium was the spoken language
1.2: history of media
4 periods:
- Pre-industrial age
- Industrial age
- Electronic age
- New/ information age (digital)
1) pre-industrial age: …-1750
oral tradition handwriting (manuscripts)
- cave drawings
- manuscripts (clay tablets, papyrus, epigraphs,…)
- acta diurna: a Roman ‘newspaper’ (important things, like there’s no
market, …)
letter press and typography (1450)
- letter press invented by Johannes Gutenberg
- = a landmark
- before, monks used to copy everything by hand = very slow
- you don't have to start over when you make a mistake
- but it was still too valuable to print newspapers
- it was still very slow and pretty manual, BUT you could make more
than the monks did
- (Chinese) xylography or block printing (200 B.C.)
Origins of the newspaper
,- pamphlets => out of these, emerged newspapers
- Early 17th century, Germany
o BE: Abraham Verhoeven – Nieuwe Tijdinghe (Antwerp, 1620)
o UK: abolishment of the Licensing Act of 1662 (press freedom)
- you had to be able to read and understand politics
- politics changed, BUT media was still for the elite
1) industrial age: 1750-1930
Mechanization of production processes media evolution
- rotary printing press
- telegraph (news spread with the speed of light)
- telephone
- camera/ movie
19th century: newspaper is no longer an elite, but a mass medium
- Press freedom (Belgian constitution, 1831)
- Increasing literacy and education in society
kids went to school because the parents needed to work
- Industrialisation and technological innovations (printing process,
telegraphy, fall in paper price)
- Rural exodus and increasing concentrations in urban areas
- Changes in social relations and extension of voting rights
- Creation of a lucrative advertising market
- Abolition of the Newspaper and Stamp Duties Act (Belgium, 1848)
Money; from the advertising market
There were around 100 newspapers in BE, now only 10
New government, new constitution => press freedom
NOW: still no tax on newspapers
Golden age of the opinion and sensational press
- End 19th/beginning 20th century
,- America: from ‘penny press’ to yellow press
Penny press = cheap press, 1 cent per newspaper
Yellow press = making the newspaper sensational, to sell more
- (Western-)Europe: ‘pillarization’ (Separation of society into parallel
groups, each with their own hierarchy, based on beliefs NL and
BE!)
- = also reflected on the press: ‘pillarized press’
o Christian Democratic pillar
o Socialist pillar
o Liberal pillar
All newspapers told the opposite
all of these different ideologies=> in which pillar you were born, you
stayed the rest of your life.
!!! Everything was divided, also the press
press was very cheap: scandals,… they sold more
2) electronic age: 1930-1980
invention of the transistor leads to new (analogue) media technologies
and telecommunication
- radio 1940: first radio broadcast
radio Loksbergen,… local radio stations
INR: national radiostation organised by the government
1930: start of VRT
the radio became bilingual
le journal parlé = first spoken newspaper
soaps on the radio
- television NIR – BRT: the government organized this
1953: television in BE
- computer
3) (new) information age: 1980-…
- Development of micro-electronics (small, portable devices)
- Invention of the world wide web (Berners-Lee, 1989)
, - Analogue digital technology (binary values, I or 0)
Technological advantages
- Rapid transferring of content
- No loss of quality, exact copies
- Content can easily be edited
- More compact (less band width and storage space required)
- Enables interactivity and easy ‘sharing’
Our preferred media today
- Smartphones
- Social media
- Streaming
What’s next?
- AI - ChatGPT
- AR - VR bril
1.3: from mass to network society
1) mass society and media
- mid-19th century: media for upper class middle class
Mass: disorganized, anonymous multitude of people, with little
involvement.
Mass media aimed at reaching a large, diverse, dispersed and
'anonymous' audience
- Heterogeneous masses are approached in a rather homogeneous
way
