Communication is the sending and receiving of information. People communicate both interpersonally (between individuals) and through communications systems that transmit messages among groups of people.
People communicate using many different modes—that is, in many different ways. For example, they may communicate through gestures and facial expressions as well as by speaking and writing. Communications systems, also called media, range from traditional systems, such as printed books, to new systems, such as the internet. Mass media include newspapers and magazines, radio, and television. Together, the communications media form a vast industry of great social importance.
How people communicate
Interpersonal communication.
Most scholars believe that communication through language began at least 150,000 years ago. The emergence of language was a decisive factor in the ability of early human beings to work together to make and use tools, shelters, and other necessary items.
Communication using language requires both a physical component—the central nervous system and muscle coordination—and cultural learning. Beginning early in life, human beings develop a basic understanding of several forms of communication. For example, at about six months old, babies begin to use both hand gestures and distinct syllables to express themselves. Face-to-face interaction with other people during the first three years of life is essential for a child to learn to communicate.
Other modes—such as mathematics, music, and the exchange of such images as photographs or works of art—also help people communicate. Ancient cave paintings, for example, usually told stories. Modes of communication vary in their use from culture to culture and from person to person. Individuals can often communicate better by using one mode than by using another.
Communications systems
are widely used in schools, businesses, government agencies, and households. Some communications systems, such as the telephone system, are networks through which users mainly exchange information directly, one-to-one. Mass communication systems—such as newspapers, magazines, radio, or television—can broadcast messages to many people at once. The internet is a system that can handle several kinds of communications—one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-one.
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Millions of people around the world work in the communications industry. Many kinds of workers are needed to make a communications system function. The telephone industry, for example, needs technicians, customer service operators, and factory workers. The television industry relies on writers, camera operators, technicians, and on-air talent. It also employs salespeople to sell advertising time, market researchers to study audience habits, and many other specialists.
Communications systems are organized differently in different countries. Economic forces shape and limit communications systems. In the United States, electronic communications systems primarily developed as private businesses whose main goal was to generate profits. In other countries, they began as government services financed primarily through service revenues and taxes. For example, television networks develop programs and services to help their advertisers reach a desired audience or target market. Most telephone providers originally operated as parts of national postal services. In some countries, government subsidies helped support newspapers.
The development of communications systems
Prehistoric times.
After language developed, people exchanged information mostly by word of mouth. Runners carried spoken messages over long distances. People also used drumbeats, fires, and smoke signals to communicate with others who could understand the codes they used.
Early writing systems.
Around 8000 B.C., people in southern Mesopotamia began using clay tokens with distinctive markings for such purposes as counting and record keeping. They gradually combined the crude numerical notations on the tokens with pictures. Sometime around 3300 B.C., this combination emerged as the writing system known as cuneiform, which used wedge-shaped characters. Many scholars believe cuneiform was the first writing system. 
Other cultures probably invented their own writing systems independently, based on their own principles and using other materials. For example, early systems of writing developed in Egypt, China, the Indus Valley (now part of India and Pakistan), and Central America.
Over time, early writing systems became increasingly phonetic—that is, they used symbols to represent individual speech sounds instead of objects. They also became increasingly abstract—that is, they used symbols that represented ideas rather than actual objects. Eventually, writing became so abstract that it became alphabetic. Alphabets made it possible to write down any word in the spoken language using comparatively few characters. Nonalphabet writing systems are still used in many parts of the world. In written Chinese, for example, each character stands for a word or part of a word.
During ancient times,
the letter was the primary medium for long-distance communication. Couriers carried letters on foot, on horseback, or by ship. Letters mainly distributed government ordinances and edicts. Military leaders also used homing pigeons to carry messages.
About 500 B.C., the ancient Greeks developed a method of sending messages quickly from city to city using a series of brick walls. The walls were close together so that each wall could be seen from the one next to it. Indentations along the top of each wall represented the letters of the Greek alphabet. To send a message, a person lit fires in the appropriate places on the wall. A watcher on the next wall could interpret the fires and relay the message. This system of communication is called a visual telegraph.
Beginning about 59 B.C., the ancient Romans shared news from a handwritten sheet called Acta Diurna (Daily Events). Government officials made a few copies each day and posted them in public. Often, slaves recopied these sheets and delivered the duplicates to readers throughout the Roman Empire. Using the empire’s extensive network of roads, the messengers could transport mail overland at a speed of up to 50 miles (80 kilometers) per day.
Another land route that could move letters quickly across vast distances was the Royal Road. It was in use by the time of the Persian King Darius I, who ruled from 522 to 486 B.C. This approximately 1,600-mile (2,600- kilometer) road helped connect Europe and Asia Minor (now Turkey) with the Far East by linking up with the Silk Road. The Silk Road was a group of ancient trade routes that connected China and Europe. Its name came from the vast amount of Chinese silk carried along the road.
Despite the ability to transport written information, the use of written communication remained severely restricted throughout the ancient world. Few people could read and write, and writing materials were typically quite costly. The chief writing materials were papyrus, made from a plant, and parchment, a kind of treated animal skin. Such materials required skilled preparation. Paper, a material consisting primarily of hemp and other plant fibers, appeared in China around A.D. 105.
During the Middle Ages,
which began in about the A.D. 400’s and lasted about 1,000 years, news continued to spread mostly by word of mouth. Town criers walked the streets announcing births, deaths, and other events of local interest. Entertainers, peddlers, wandering preachers, and others who traveled from place to place carried messages and news.
Christianity, especially the Roman Catholic Church, exerted a powerful influence on communications systems throughout the Middle Ages. Most books and other writings involved religious themes, and most scribes were monks. Scribes often toiled for months to finish a single volume, and so they produced few books. They decorated much of their work with pictures and designs in color or in gold or silver leaf. These illustrated books were luxury items, and they were written mainly in Latin—the language of the church and of scholars. Thus, written materials had limited distribution.
The rise of printing.
From the 1300’s to the 1600’s, several events increased the demand for written materials in Europe. One event was the growth of commercial merchant classes, who needed written materials for advertising and record keeping. Another was the Renaissance, a period of intellectual awakening that stimulated people’s interest in books and other written pieces of literature. Paper, which had appeared in Europe in the 900’s, had become cheap and widely available. Hand copying could no longer satisfy the demand for written materials. In the 1400’s, mechanical printing, which had long been known in East Asia, came to Europe.
The first European printers did not make books. Instead, they made playing cards, which were in great demand. An artist carved a raised image of a card on a block of wood. Then the printer inked the image and pressed a blank card against it. The picture was transferred to the card. Printers soon began using this block printing method to make books as well as cards. Printers in China, Japan, and Korea had practiced wood-block printing of texts at least as early as the 700’s, but it took a long time to carve the characters into the blocks.
The invention of movable type
made printing much faster. A Chinese printer named Bi Sheng (also spelled Pi Sheng) invented this printing system about 1045. The system employed carved letters that could be used over and over again. After printing a page, a printer separated the pieces of type and rearranged them as needed. Europeans independently developed this technique much later.
Most historians consider Johannes Gutenberg, a German goldsmith, to be the inventor of movable type in Europe. In the mid-1400’s, Gutenberg brought together several inventions to create a whole new system of printing. He made separate pieces of metal type, both capital and small letters, for each letter of the alphabet. He lined up the pieces of type in a frame to form pages. Gutenberg inked the type using ink he had created from paint, dye, and other substances. Finally, he used a press to put uniform pressure on the paper. His was the first mechanical printing press in Europe.
The effects of printing.
Printing quickly became a vital new mode of communication and soon replaced hand copying. Around Europe, it spurred the production of Bibles and other religious texts in such commonly spoken languages as German, English, and French. As the number of literate people increased, printed common-language translations satisfied the growing demand for reading material.
Printing also stimulated the rise of public opinion as a political and cultural force. Debates over church practices, economic issues, foreign policy, and social problems quickly erupted into print. Many of the materials printed during this period were single sheets called broadsides or pamphlets known as chapbooks. The new medium of print aided the Reformation, which began as an effort to reform the Catholic Church and ended with the establishment of Protestant churches.
By the 1600’s, merchants, bankers, and commercial traders had become heavy users of print media. Printed newssheets called corantos appeared in the Netherlands, England, and other trading nations. The corantos reported mostly business news, such as which ships had landed and what goods they carried. The newssheets enabled merchants to learn of conditions affecting prices in distant markets. Corantos also printed advertising. They are considered the first true newspapers.
The 1700’s.
The Industrial Revolution, a period of rapid industrial expansion, began in Britain (now also known as the United Kingdom) in the 1700’s. The revolution spread throughout Europe and to North America by the early 1800’s, bringing about dramatic changes in people’s lives and working occupations. At the same time, a movement toward democratic government also swept these regions. A continuing transformation of communications and shifts in the control of media systems accompanied the economic and political changes. See Industrial Revolution.
The publication of books, magazines, and newspapers, as well as broadsides and chapbooks, made different kinds of information and entertainment available to more and more readers. By the end of the 1700’s, European voyages of discovery and conquest had spread printed materials to many parts of the world.
From the beginning of the print era, monarchs in some European countries granted leading printers a legal right, known as a letters patent, to publish and sell particular titles. This allowed kings and queens to censor what could be published. During the 1700’s, people challenged this system. In 1710, the British Parliament passed the first national copyright law, reducing rulers’ control over the print media. Many other countries eventually adopted the British copyright system or created their own. Copyright laws established clear legal rights to authors and publishers of books and other forms of creative work. Literary property became increasingly valuable. Publishing surged during the late 1700’s. But rulers continued to levy taxes on paper, thus restricting both the availability of printed materials and freedom of expression.
During the 1700’s, private operators ran local letter delivery services in some European cities. But royal monopolies operating under exclusive charters granted by the king or queen ran the great postal systems that spanned long distances across kingdoms.
In the late 1700’s, the French engineer Claude Chappe developed a visual telegraph similar to that of the ancient Greeks. The device consisted of a series of towers between Paris and other European cities. An operator in each tower moved a crossbar and two large, jointed arms on the roof to spell out messages. An observer on the next tower read the messages and passed them on.
The 1800’s
brought a significant improvement in printing technology. The century also brought the development of photography and high-speed electronic communication in the form of the telegraph and telephone.
The increasing impact of printing.
In 1811, the German printer Friedrich König became the first to use a steam engine to power a printing press. Although printers continued to set type by hand, they could now print materials hundreds of times faster, and so could produce large numbers of copies cheaply. In 1814, The Times of London became the first newspaper to use König’s press. By the mid-1800’s, widespread access to printed materials had led to a rapid increase in literacy in industrialized countries. Literacy was slow to increase in the developing countries of Africa, Latin America, and Asia. These regions were geographically distant from Europe and could produce only a small fraction of the world’s printed materials.
The invention of photography
further aided communication. Many American, British, and French scientists contributed to the development of photography, and no one person can be called its inventor. In 1826, a French physicist named Joseph Nicéphore Niépce made the first permanent photograph. Niépce’s technique, which he called heliography, involved exposing a metal plate to light for about eight hours. As a result, Niépce could photograph only motionless objects.
The French painter Louis J. M. Daguerre worked as Niépce’s partner for several years. In the 1830’s, Daguerre developed the daguerreotype, a type of photograph that took only a few minutes to expose. About the same time, the British inventor William Henry Fox Talbot devised a photographic method that used a paper negative. Fox Talbot’s invention, which he called a talbotype or calotype, was not widely adopted because it produced lower quality pictures than a daguerreotype. But the idea of using a flexible negative became the key to modern photography. The glass or metal plates used in other methods had to be changed after each exposure. Using the talbotype, photographers could move film through the camera to take a series of pictures.
Improvements in postal delivery.
During the 1800’s, mail delivery increased dramatically. Greater handling efficiency lowered postage rates, and national post offices introduced new services. By the late 1800’s, the national post office had become one of the biggest and most important departments of government in many countries. The General Postal Union (now the Universal Postal Union) was established in 1884 to promote the exchange of mail between countries.
The electric telegraph.
High-speed communication began with the invention of the electric telegraph. Inventors in Denmark, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and other countries built various telegraphs during the early 1800’s. But all these devices lacked a stable source of electric power and were difficult to use.
During the 1830’s, the American painter and scientist Samuel F. B. Morse began work on an electric telegraph. He and his partner, Alfred Vail, developed a simple telegraph that had a stable current produced by batteries. The device sent messages over a wire through electric current. It used a code of dots and dashes, a format now known as Morse code. Morse patented his invention in 1840. Newspapers started to use his telegraph within a few years. News agencies, including Reuters (now Thomson Reuters) in the United Kingdom and the Associated Press in the United States, began using telegraphy to centralize and speed up news distribution. The telegraph also enabled the early railroads to safely schedule trains, thus avoiding crashes.
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The telegraph quickly became the primary mode of long-distance communication. By the 1860’s, telegraph lines linked most major U.S. cities. The first transatlantic telegraph cable connected Valentia Island, Ireland, to Newfoundland, Canada, in 1866. In 1902, the All Red Line system of telegraph cables was completed. The line connected England, South Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, as well as other British colonies.
People in the world’s less developed regions had little access to the telegraph. In wealthy countries, telegraphy was a business service used mainly by banks, railroads, publishers, and merchants. High service rates barred more personal use. In most countries, telegraph service eventually became part of the national post office.
The telephone.
Alexander Graham Bell, a Scottish-born teacher of the deaf, patented a kind of telephone in 1876. Telephone exchanges began to form in U.S. cities in 1878, and many of them used Bell’s design. In 1879, the National Bell Telephone Company consolidated all the exchanges into a nationwide telephone network. The company, which later became the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), acquired many key patents. As a result, AT&T was able to maintain a near-monopoly of telephone service for many years. The company eventually was split into a group of subsidiaries, known as the Bell System, that served about 80 percent of the U.S. market. Telephone services quickly developed in other industrialized countries. However, until the mid-1900’s, there were more telephones in the United States than in all other countries combined.
Other inventions
of the late 1800’s expanded the variety of communications systems. These inventions included the typewriter in 1867, the phonograph in 1877, and motion pictures in the 1890’s. By 1900, an international recording industry had developed, and customers bought tens of millions of phonograph records each year. Silent films, based mainly in France, England, Italy, and the United States, had become hugely popular by 1900 as well. Hollywood, California, the center of U.S. moviemaking, began to dominate the global film industry by the 1920’s.
The development of electronics.
Near the end of the 1800’s, inventors began using a branch of science and engineering called electronics to send communications signals through space instead of along wires. The development of electronics led to the invention of radio, television, and other media of modern communication.
The field of electronics developed from ideas and experiments of several scientists. In 1864, the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell theorized that electromagnetic waves travel through space at the speed of light. About 1887, the German physicist Heinrich Hertz proved the existence of these waves.
The invention of radio.
In the early 1890’s, Nikola Tesla, a Serbian American inventor from what is now Croatia (then part of Austria-Hungary), established theories for wireless communication. By 1893, he had assembled all the components needed for a radio. In 1895, the Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi demonstrated his own device, which he called the wireless telegraph. Marconi’s device was widely recognized as the first successful radio. However, his patents were later invalidated in favor of Tesla’s, which had been issued earlier.
Loading the player...Marconi describes first transatlantic wireless communication
Radio quickly gained an important role in military operations and commercial ocean navigation. Radio technology also improved rapidly. At first, wireless devices sent only Morse code signals. Then Reginald A. Fessenden, a Canadian-born physicist, attached a telephone mouthpiece to a wireless telegraph and became one of the first people to transmit the human voice by radio. On Christmas Eve in 1906, several radio operators picked up Fessenden’s first broadcast. They were shocked to hear Christmas music and a Bible reading instead of a Morse code signal.
During the early 1900’s, Lee De Forest of the United States and other electrical engineers developed vacuum tubes, devices that could detect and amplify radio signals. Vacuum tubes played a vital role in the expanding long-distance telephone network. The devices also became a basic component in a new generation of radio broadcasting systems. Experimental radio stations, many connected with engineering schools or universities, appeared as early as 1908.
The development of the radio industry.
In 1919, General Electric Company formed the Radio Corporation of America (later called the RCA Corporation). The corporation acquired patents from all United States manufacturers of radio equipment, giving the United States an advantage in developing the world’s leading radio communications system.
Radio stations quickly began operating throughout the United States. Two of the earliest commercial stations were KDKA in Pittsburgh and WWJ in Detroit. Both began regular broadcasts in 1920. In 1922, station WEAF in New York City, New York, accepted a fee to allow a company selling apartments to advertise on the air. This advertisement was the first radio commercial. Until that time, profits from the sale of radio sets paid for programs. The United States soon developed a system of commercial radio in which most programs were paid for by selling advertisements or sponsorships. In turn, sponsors profoundly influenced the character of broadcast programs and their target audiences. In many countries outside the United States, radio networks were government-funded, and advertising was significantly restricted.
The development of television.
Television broadcasting originated from the research and thinking of many people. Attempts to send pictures through space date back to the 1800’s. Telecasting based on electronic scanning began in the United Kingdom, Germany, and several U.S. cities during the late 1930’s. The development of electronic components advanced quickly during World War II (1939-1945), when parts for weapons and communications systems greatly contributed to the improvement of television technology.
The United States and other countries suspended television programming during the war, but broadcasting resumed just afterward. During the late 1940’s, TV stations began operating all across the United States. Television broadcasters set up networks of affiliate stations that shared programming. Hollywood film studios also supplemented their moviemaking profits by supplying the networks with an increasing share of TV programs. Cable television began in the 1950’s as a way to extend the reception of broadcast signals to rural communities. Videotape recorders that stored broadcast-quality pictures and sound on magnetic tape were first used by the television industry in the 1950’s.
By the mid-1960’s, more than 90 countries had television stations. Film and television companies in the United States profited by selling programs to foreign broadcasters. They also worked to ensure that foreign television systems would accept commercial advertising. This effort succeeded in several countries, including Japan and the United Kingdom. The United States was becoming the center of an increasingly global commercial television industry. In the 1960’s, communications satellites began to extend the overseas reach of the U.S. television industry. But commercial U.S. broadcasters bought few foreign TV programs to air in the United States. Many nations opposed such an imbalance in the industry, and they tried to impose limits on imports of American programs and on satellite services.
The digital age.
During the late 1900’s, computer technology advanced rapidly. As a result, the communications industry created and distributed more and more media content in a digital (numeric) format.
In publishing.
During the 1970’s, newspapers and other print publications began to use computerized editing and graphic-design systems. With these systems, writers and editors could type articles on computer keyboards and see the information displayed on a computer monitor. The articles were stored in a computer’s hard drive as digital files that could be used in many ways. For example, a device called a photocomposition machine could use a stored file to set an article in type on photographic film. Digital files could also be copied and shared with others.
In the telephone industry,
companies first used digital technology in the switches that set up and opened circuits between callers. By the late 1970’s, a branch of physics called fiber optics had made it possible for telephone companies to use light to send far more messages at one time than could be done with electric current or radio waves. In fiber-optic communication, a laser or light-emitting diode (LED) translates the electric signals of a telephone call or TV picture into light impulses. The light is aimed into one end of an optical fiber, a hair-thin strand of transparent glass or plastic. The light can travel great distances through the fiber without diminishing significantly in intensity. At the opposite end, a device reads the patterns of impulses and changes them into a duplicate of the original sounds and pictures.
The introduction of cellular telephones revolutionized the telephone industry and communication in general. A cellular telephone, commonly known as a cell phone, is a handheld device that sends and receives voice calls and other messages through wireless radio signals. The cell phone’s small size and portability allow users to communicate with others at any time from virtually any place in the world. The world’s first commercial cellular system went into operation in Japan in 1979. The first commercial cell phone in the United States was released by Motorola, Inc. (now called Motorola Solutions, Inc.) in 1983. By the late 1980’s, cellular service had gained popularity throughout the world.
Early cell phones sent signals as analog waves (constantly varying waves representing sounds). Modern cell phones use digital signals, which enable the phones to transmit text messages and internet data as well as voice calls. By the early 1990’s, millions of people were using cell phones. Cell phones outnumbered traditional landline phones throughout the world by the early 2000’s. The Canadian firm Research in Motion pioneered the development of smartphones in 2002. Smartphones are cell phones that work as small computers. Smartphones typically have built-in cameras and can store digital photographs, music, and videos as well as perform all of the other functions of a cell phone. 
In recording.
Record companies introduced the compact disc (CD), a digital audio recording medium, in 1982. It quickly replaced the vinyl phonograph record and cut deeply into sales of audio cassette tapes. Digital video recording achieved its greatest success with a disk format called DVD, introduced in the late 1990’s. Digital cameras also arrived in the late 1990’s. Around 2011, such high-definition video formats as Blu-Ray became popular and began to replace DVD’s.
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In television.
Broadcast engineers invented digital television systems around 1990, and commercial digital broadcasts began in the late 1990’s. In most developed countries, traditional over-the-air, cable, and satellite television services upgraded their systems to the now-standard digital format. By switching to digital programming, consumers could access more channels of content. In addition, more of the frequency bandwidth spectrum became available for such wireless applications as mobile phone service.
The development of the internet.
By the 1980’s, many businesses operated their own computer networks. By the early 1990’s, these networks supported a host of functions, such as word processing, inventory control, research and development, and accounting. Many of these networks joined the internet, a worldwide computer network. The internet distributes information in a unique way called packet switching. Information and files sent through the internet are broken down into packets of data that travel separately across the network. The packets are reassembled at their destination. For most files, this process takes only a fraction of a second.
The U.S. government created the internet during the 1960’s as part of a military network called ARPANET. ARPANET grew to include hundreds of computers. Eventually it was split into two parts: one for military use, and the other for research purposes.
During the 1990’s, a series of innovations transformed the internet into a dominant global communications medium. First, email (electronic mail) emerged as a leading form of interpersonal communication. Next, the World Wide Web, a portion of the internet that has multimedia capabilities, came into being. Multimedia includes illustrations, sounds, and moving pictures in addition to text. The Web helped make the internet more accessible to regular users. Computer programs called browsers made it easier for people to get online. The development of a feature called a hyperlink enabled users to navigate between web pages, sites where content is published. Today, the internet connects billions of companies, computer servers, and personal computing devices.
The internet not only brought about a new era of access to information, it also enabled new ways of communicating among people. Social media, a type of technology that creates virtual communities among its users, has become a prominent part of modern life. Since the 1990’s, a variety of online applications (apps) and networked “platforms” have emerged. Social networking websites—including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, and X (formerly called Twitter)—allow users to share such content as text, images, and video. Individuals who produce content can choose to limit their “posts” to select groups or to publish it openly for all internet users to access. Social media apps can be both web-based and mobile (designed to be used on cell phones).
By the early 2010’s, social media platforms had experienced dramatic growth. They also began to play an increasingly important role in discussions of such social issues as police use of force in the United States; in such political movements as the antigovernment protests in Egypt in 2011; and in the publication of updates by news sources in “real time” on breaking news worldwide. As social media has become more popular, however, sites such as Facebook and Snapchat have increasingly distanced their platforms from the “open” Web. This trend is due in part to companies’ efforts to increase their profits by collecting, interpreting, and placing monetary value on their users’ activities and interests in order to sell services to advertisers. Another reason is that many social media developers have focused on creating and expanding their mobile apps for the fastest-growing segment of online users.
Growth and consolidation of the communications industry.
During the late 1900’s, many companies invested heavily in digital communications systems, leading to extraordinary growth in the development of new communication technologies, including cellular phones. Much of this growth occurred in developing countries, including in Asia and Latin America. Access to cell phones in these nations, for example, often provides the only practical means of long-distance communication. However, digital expansion has not provided access to newer communication technologies to all people. In fact, by the mid-2010’s, only about 30 percent of African households had a television set and only about 10 percent had basic internet service.
During the late 1900’s and early 2000’s, many previously independent newspaper groups, telephone companies, motion-picture studios, and television networks merged to form giant information and entertainment conglomerates. At the same time, several major communications companies began to expand their operations into other nations. The national broadcast systems of many countries began to accept commercial advertising for the first time. Corporate-owned broadcasting and telecommunications systems were established in most countries, often with foreign backers. As a result, noncommercial (also called public service) broadcast systems declined while commercial systems grew rapidly.
The study of communication
The two oldest areas of systematic investigation into human communication are linguistics (the scientific study of language) and nonverbal communication. Linguists began their studies during the late 1700’s, when scholars first compared the world’s languages and found similarities among them. The study of nonverbal communication dates from at least the 1800’s, when teachers of acting and pantomime analyzed how facial and body movements convey emotion.
The modern study of nonverbal communication—sometimes called body language—includes both kinesics (kih NEE sihks) and proxemics (prahk SEE mihks). Kinesics is the study of the body and facial movements that accompany speech. The American anthropologist Ray L. Birdwhistell developed kinesics. Birdwhistell used slow-motion films of speakers to analyze their gestures and expressions. Another American anthropologist, Edward T. Hall, developed proxemics. Hall studied how people in different cultures use gestures, posture, speaking distance, and other nonverbal signs to communicate their feelings and social status. People would feel uncomfortable putting most of these feelings into words. But proxemics enables people to send and receive messages without the use of words.
The study of communication emerged as a special field of research in the United States from the late 1930’s through the 1950’s. Scholars who made contributions to communication focused principally on critical issues associated with emerging media systems.
The effects of media.
The growth of film, radio, and television in the 1900’s raised questions concerning the influence of media on individuals. For example, some people became concerned about the impact of violence seen or heard through media on children and adolescents. First radio, then television, gained a prominent role in politics and elections. As a result, American social psychologists, especially Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Frank N. Stanton, began to study the effects of media on the public. Investigations by other U.S. researchers included those of the social psychologists Hadley Cantril, Carl I. Hovland, and Robert K. Merton. The research of these scholars inspired that of the American social psychologist Bernard Berelson, the sociologist Joseph T. Klapper, and the educator Elihu Katz. Research on audience behavior and use of media by individuals continues today.
Communication and politics.
Governments and other communicators have conducted extensive media propaganda operations, mainly using newspapers, at least since World War I (1914-1918). During World War II, the warring nations added radio and other mass media to their propaganda operations. Political scientists, most notably Harold D. Lasswell, began to study propaganda and its role in the formation of public opinion. Such study continued as the theory and practice of modern media propaganda carried over into the Cold War, a period of intense hostility between Communist and non-Communist nations following World War II.
Communication and culture.
During the late 1900’s and early 2000’s, the concept of culture became a focus of study in many academic disciplines, including the field of communication. For social scientists, culture means a people’s way of life, including their artistic practices, religious beliefs, customs, inventions, and uses of technology. Cultural studies of communication began attracting interest in Europe in the 1960’s and 1970’s and soon gained attention worldwide. The cultural theorists Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall, as well as other scholars in the United Kingdom, helped to develop this approach. Such study focuses on how contemporary communications media shape people’s understanding and action.
In the early 2000’s, many social scientists turned their attention to the effects of social media on children and adolescents. Young people in great numbers had begun to interact with others through such social network sites as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, Twitter (now called X), and others. Some people became concerned about the amount of time young people were devoting to social media at the expense of academics and other important pursuits. Other people were concerned about the impact of cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is intentional and repeated harm inflicted on people through the use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices.
