Media and Us

Communication Revolution

The last two centuries are characterized by many types of revolution. Maybe the revolution that will shape the future of humanity better is the communication one. The human being is a social animal, communication with its similars is extremely necessary. The transmission of knowledge, either in time or space, becames more efficient everytime.

Let's start with the television. The television is a great way to distract yourself when bored. But it wasn't easy to create a device that monopolizes millions of people wordwide. It was needed a lot of science and years of study for it. It all started in 1817, when the swedish scientist Jakob Berzelius found out and isolated selenium, observing the photosensitivity of the chemical element that loose up electrons when exposed to light. But the thesis that the selenium possessed the property of transforming light energy in electric energy was proven only 56 years later, in 1873. In Portugal, the television showed up in 1957 becoming a national phenomenon. At the beggining, people would go to public places to watch television, since very few could afford one. Nowadays, there are 4 channels issuing in open signal in Portugal: RTP1, RTP2, SIC and TVI. These generalistic channels are the channels with greater audience in Portugal because they are free.

Moving on to the computer, which was created to organize large quantities of data, store, select and transmit them to other places quickly.  The first computers were projected half a century ago. Since the 80's, personal computers invaded homes. They became responsible for most of the technological revolution of the 20th century. Very different from the computers we hae today, the first machines were huge, getting to occupy an entire office building floor. The capacity of the computer wasn't mesured in bytes but in square metres. In Portugal, it started to be commercialized in 1980.

On to the telephone, which soon became the mobile telephone. The invention of the telegraph, in 1844, stimulated the creation of the telephone. The scotchman Alexander Graham Bell, who dedicated himself to teaching deaf and mute people, discovered, accidentally, the telephone while experimenting with a musical telegraph in his lab. The first telephone was presented to the world in 1876, in an exhabition in Philadelphia, USA. In Portugal, the first telephone experiences began on th 24th of November 1877, connecting Carcavelos (a town near lisbon) to Central do Cabo in Lisbon. The first telephonic network was launched in Lisbon on the 26th of April 1882 by Edison Gower Bell Telephone Company of Europe Ltd, which had grant since the 13th of January 1882. The grant was transfered to The Anglo Portuguese Telephone Company in 1887 and kept it until 1968. The first automatic telephone service was launched in Portugal in 1930 and on the 25th of September 1937, the Anglo Portuguese Telephone Company launced the first automatic telephone station from Estrela in Lisbon.

Next is the radio. The radio is a technological resource used to provide communication through transception of information previously encoded in electromagnetic signal that spreads through space. After the television, the radio is the mean of communication of greater reach in most countries. Like the television, a radio staion can only air if it obtains government grant. In Portugal, the radio is as important or maybe more as the television. The radio is one of the symbols of the Portuguese revolution of 25th of April 1974 as it was used to give a signal to the troops to start moving in. It is also used by most people specially in the morning when people go to work or are getting ready, it keeps them company in the shower or in the car.

Last but no least is the Internet. The internet revolutionated communication systems radically. The means of communication could not escape that virtual revolution. There is a great variety of updated news, in digital publications of all kind. The Internet puts at the reach of the user every kind of news, accessed from any place or moment. As long as you have a computer and connection to the network. It started being used in Portugal in the 80's like in most countries. Until the first years of the decade of the 90's, the access and the usage of the Internet were practically restricted to a few hundreds of people in the academic and scientific portuguese communities. Nowadays, practically the whole country has access to the Internet.

Hope you guys liked it!

Love,

Bea and Joana

xxxx