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Media And Technology : The Development Of Mass Media

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The Development of Mass Media
Brenton Adams
HUM/186
08/21/2017
Allyson Wells

The Development of Mass Media Mass media began in the American culture with the newspaper and within the last century had advanced to the television. Now we are seeing a rise in how mass media targets its viewers via the Internet, where it has become more difficult to discern the origination of the information we receive. All these technological developments have played a substantial role in how we, as Americans, receive that information; along with the rest of the world.
Evolution of Mass Media
Even before the United States of America was founded in 1776, colonists were printing newspapers as early as the year 1690. In 1690 the first newspaper in America, Publick Occurrences, Both Foreign and Domestick, was printed by Richard Pierce though was shortly disallowed to do so by the governing authorities at the time (PaperAge, 2004). The Boston Gazette, born in December of 1719 managed to persevere and continued well through the country’s Declaration of Independence (PaperAge, 2004).
Moving forward, the newspaper and printing press became the primary way that Americans communicated democratic information to one another (University of Phoenix, n.d.)1, at least until the development of television. In the 1950s, mass media companies strongly took hold of what was being displayed on television, as well as several newspapers and the radio, in the form of agenda setting (University of

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