An Introduction to the IT Age and Mass Electronic, Digitized, Interactive Communication

Before we proceed to the history of various branches of mass communication, let us make a few introductory remarks in this special article.

The four components of Information Technology have developed at a fast rate during the past six decades: photophonics; the scientific phenomenon of glass fibres carrying information as pulses of light and sound to near and far destinations; microelectronics, the branch of electronics that deals with components of miniature size; digital systems, operating on the digitalized computer system based on the binary 1,0 concept; and software (programmes or data written, printed, or in symbolic language, essential to the operation of computers.

These components were inaugurated and developed in the West during the closing decades of the 20th century, that is, during the closing years of the Old Millennium. India acquired these skills fully well in the first decade of the New Millennium. Telecommunication via electronic mail and YouTube, Orkut, Facebook, and Twitter are currently in use all over the world, especially in the educated and financially well-placed sectors which are also great users of interpersonal modes of communication such as the mobile or cell phone. The latest development is the Combo-medium of Smart Phone which can offer the services of different combinations of media service as required by the customers who can easily convert the instrument from one mode of service tp another by the touch of a button.

The Information Age is upon us. Newspapers are read on the web; radio and television are available digitally and people exchange views interpersonally through electronic mail. Our Age is totally different from our parents who communicated through the analogous method, and also through time-consuming epistolary methods, But remember that our parents’ method of communication through letters, telegrams, telephones was totally different from the method used by their parents, our grandparents. Science and Technology have helped us all to change our methods of communication, but it is of sociological and historical importance to know how all these changes have occurred, and that is why we have to look at the growth and development of the various branches of communication in the following articles.

What printing from Gutenberg’s movable types did to publishing in the 15th century and what Marconi’s wireless did to telecommunication (TC) in the 19th century, the silicon-chip-based IT is doing to the 21st century, bringing a total revolution in TC. It is indeed a brave new world that we are now living in. Millions of bits of information are exchanged by the new devices and displayed right in our drawing rooms. Electronic newspapers, books and other library materials, bank statements, commercial data, medical records, video records, diagnostic data and treatment modes (telemedicine) are conveyed to near and distant destinations in minutes, if not seconds. Distance education is achieved through the new devices.

Miniaturization has been perfected a great deal by pioneers in the U.S., U.K., and Japan. Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s scientific dreams and science fiction fantasies have been translated into reality. Satellite communication has moved from virtual to real and tangible reality; it is possible now to carry all the equipment in miniature form in a travel-kit transferable through the trunk of a car and from there to the cargo section of an airplane!

The immense possibilities of instant communication with fellow-beings living far away on Earth or rockets or satellites’ inhabitants in or around other planets such as Venus, Mars, Jupiter or Saturn (even outside our solar system) have been confirmed in recent years. Intra-planetary communication has opened up new vistas of economic, political and cultural transactions. And inter-planetary, inter-satellite human-to-human and human-machine interactions promise immense possibilities in the coming decades. We also have new devices to do banking on the Internet, making payments for utilities such as electricity, telephone and water, without driving or walking to the banks, KSEB or Water Authority offices. We can save a lot of time and physical effort through our regular usage of the new facilities.

BUT, what are we going to do with the time we save? Watching movies or listening to music? Life is not all entertainment to the majority of the people in all countries. Life continues to be a hard struggle for most people. That is the way our economics and politics are working in the world---be it ancient or modern!!

Let us now turn to reality of how the different branches of the media have evolved.