Writing
Written communication in the form of pictures and then an alphabet.
The initial written form of communication was a pictograph. Each picture represented different actions and objects. The earliest forms of these picture words were in 3500 B.C. in an area of the world called Sumeria, that is now Iraq.
A Sumarian clay tablet 3500 B.C.
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The Egyptians came up with hieroglyphics, which was developed a few hundred years later.
Egyptian Hieroglyphics
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The Chinese used pictographs around 2000 to 1500 B.C.
Written communication in the form of an alphabet had a foundation of symbols relating to sounds and not signs. The Phoenicians established an alphabet around 800 B.C. The Romans much later took the Greek alphabet and translated it into 26 letters. An alphabet was far more efficient than the old system of pictographs. A simple sentence might require less than 50 letters and punctuation marks using an alphabet. In comparison, that same sentence would use about 9,000 pictures to say the same thing.
Paper
The invention of paper was necessary once a form of written communication was invented. Paper was the surface that made written communication manageable.
At first, clay tablets were used for written communications but they were bulky and difficult to transport. The Egyptians came up with a woven surface from the papyrus plant and painted hieroglyphics on this paper. The Greeks used a parchment from animal hides. But it was the Chinese who invented the standard writing surface of paper that is still used today. While the Chinese were using paper around 100 B.C., it was not used widely in Europe for another thousand years.
The world's oldest book from China, 868.
The invention of paper allowed those who could read and write to attain wealth and social status. It also made tax collecting and record keeping easier. Another way that the invention of paper had a profound influence on society was that history and journals could be written for future generations to read. Finally, the laws of the land could be recorded and developed on paper thereby establishing a posted code of civil conduct.
Paper can be made from wood fiber, hemp, cotton, linen and rice
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Print
The invention of printing satisfied the huge demand for books. After the invention of paper, there was a tremendous demand for books to be written. But all books had to be written by hand and this was tremendously time consuming and expensive. If you wanted to write a book you had to hire a scribe to write it and it was costly.
A 14th century scribe.
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The Chinese developed a block printing system in 868 and then a kind of movable type made of clay and then wood. The Koreans even had a movable type in the 15th century.
An example of Chinese movable block type in the 13th century.
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But it was in Germany where Johann Gutenberg developed the printing press that utilized movable type and allowed the Bible to be printed about 1453. This printing method spread throughout the continent of Europe. Suddenly books were being printed, although the rich were the only people who could afford them. The newspaper was officially created as the primary source of news for the masses.
Gutenberg Printing Press, 1453
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The printing press led to a revolution of items that were invented or reinforced. These items were religion, scientific research, journals of exploration by explorers, knowledge and study and what we know today as news reporting.
The Telegraph
It is impossible for those of us today to imagine life without our cell phones, but before cell phones were invented there was another huge milestone in the invention of the telegraph.
The telegraph was the fastest form of communication at that time and seen as remarkable. It could travel with a message at the speed of light. Samuel Morse was one developer of the telegraph and his “Morse code” of dots and dashes is still used today.
Morse's Telegraph, 1837
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An Optical Telegraph in Germany.
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The telegraph was called “the great annihilator of time and space” in that it changed society itself through transportation in the railroads, the way war was conducted, the speed of communication between buyers and sellers and trans-Atlantic communication.
Most of all, the telegraph was pivotal in the formation of news services and agencies.
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Photography
The invention of the camera was first evident in the photographs taken during the Civil War. Suddenly war was a horror in the visual sense that was never understood even in the most graphic written descriptions. Photojournalism where “a picture says a thousand words” became popular as a picture could be internalized faster than the written words.
