GCSE Media Studies: an Introduction

Introduction to Media

Objective: By the end of the lesson you will have discovered key dates in the history of the media and begun to create a media timeline

A. Answer the following questions

For information — Websites used to create this research task: www.ask.co.uk, www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk, www.bbc.co.uk and www.bl.uk

1. First of all, before logging on to any websites, take a guess at how old you think the media is.

2. When was the ‘Diamond Sutra’ printed?

3. Who mastered the printing technique of ‘casting and setting’? When?

4. When did William Caxton patent his printing press?

5. What was the name of the first text he published and when was it published?

6. What was the first text published in English and when?

7. When was the first English newspaper published? (This is a trick question because although it was published in the English language it was printed in Amsterdam!)

8. When was the first folio of Shakespeare’s plays published?

9. When was the BBC established?

10. When was the first tabloid newspaper established and what was the name of the paper?

11. When was the first typewriter patented and by whom?

12. Who invented the modern computer and when?

13. Who invented the first camera and when?

15. Which company launched the first CD player and when?

16. When was the VCR (video cassette recorder) invented?

17. When was the DVD invented?

18. What was the first film with sound and when was it filmed?

19. When was the first commercial radio station?

20. What was the first advertisement on commercial television and when was it shown?

21. When was breakfast television launched?

22. Do you now wish to adjust your answer to Question 1?

B. Using the information gained above, create a media timeline, starting with the earliest date and finishing with the most recent.

Answers

1. Approximately 5,500 years old (In 3500 BC, pictographs of accounts written on clay tablets – www.mediahistory.umn.edu/time/alltime.html)

2. AD 868

3. Koreans, c. 1377

4. 1475

5. Chaucer’s ‘The Canterbury Tales’, 1476

6. Tyndale’s New Testament 1526

7. 1620

8. 1623

9. 1922

10. 1896, Daily Mail

11. 1744, Henry Mills

12. 1840, Charles Babbage / 1945, Alan Turing

13. 1839, Louis Dagiere

14. 1888

15. 1983, Sony/Phillips

16. 1971

17. 1994

18. 1927, The Jazz Singer

19. 1973, LBC (London Broadcasting Corporation)

20. 1955, Gibbs SR toothpaste

21. 1983

22. As Question 1