Communication

H

Computers

The earliest computers were machines built to make repetitive numerical calculations that had previously been done by hand. By the 1890s calculating machines were used to tabulate the U.S. Census with a punched-card system invented by Herman Hollerith. Electromechanical calculators were being built by the 1930s, especially by a new company called the International Business Machines Company (IBM). The first truly electronic memory and processors were built by John Vincent Atanasoff in 1939 at the Iowa State College, and the first fully functioning electronic computers, a series of ten called Colossus, were built by the British Secret Service during World War II to help them crack the Germans' secret military codes. The first general-purpose electronic computer in America, called the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), was introduced at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946. Two of its inventors, American engineers John Presper Eckert, Jr., and John Mauchly, moved on to build the first electronic computer for commercial use, the UNIVAC, at the Remington Rand Corporation.

While computers continued to improve, they were used primarily for mathematical and scientific calculations, and for encoding and deciphering encoded messages. Computer technology was finally applied to printed communication in the 1970s when the first word processors were created. These machines had a single purpose and were not what would be considered full computers, but they added computer processing to typewriters to make writing and changing text significantly easier.

In 1975 the first microcomputer was introduced, which had the power of many larger machines but could fit onto a desktop. This miniaturization was accomplished by using new microprocessor technologies, which compressed the memory and processing power of many hundreds and then thousands of circuits onto tiny chips of materials called semiconductors. The invention was soon followed by the introduction of the first word-processing software in 1978, which enabled people to use the computer to write and change text and graphics.

At the same time that computers were becoming faster, more-powerful, and smaller, networks developed for interconnecting computers. In the 1960s the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense, along with researchers working on military projects at research centers and universities across the country, developed a network called the ARPANET for sharing data and mainframe computer processing time over specially equipped telephone lines and satellite links. The network was designed to survive the attack or destruction of some of its parts and continue to work.

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Soon, however, scientists using the ARPANET realized that they could send and receive messages as well as data and programs over the network. The ARPANET became the first major electronic-mail network; soon thousands of researchers all over the world used it. Later the National Science Foundation (NSF) helped connect more universities and nonmilitary research sites to the ARPANET, and renamed it the Internet because it was a network of networks among many different organizations.

Today the Internet is the foundation of computer networks in the United States. It is interconnected by both wire and over-the-air microwave and satellite telephone lines. Commercial online service providers—such as America Online, CompuServe, and the Microsoft Network—sell Internet access to individual computer users and companies. Smaller networks of computers, called Local Area Networks (LANs), can be installed in a single building or for a whole organization. Wide Area Networks (WANs) can be used to span a large geographical area. LANs and WANs use telephone lines, computer cables, and microwave and laser beams to carry digital information around a smaller area, such as a single college campus. In turn, they can interconnect to the Internet. Computer networks can carry any digital signals, including video images, sounds, graphics, animations, and text.

Since the 1970s personal computers have transformed American business, education, and entertainment. The typical home or business computer today has many times the computing power of a single early mainframe. People can use computers to design graphics and full-motion video, compose music, send electronic mail, make airline or hotel reservations, or search the Library of Congress over the World Wide Web. They can play games and even visit electronic rooms or parties to talk to other people. These activities are made possible by multimedia computer programs that employ still and motion pictures, sounds, graphics, and text together.

Computers are used in all aspects of business and education. Self-instructional computer programs help people learn new information or skills (see Computer-Aided Instruction). Some programs are simulations, which imitate tasks that require the learner to perform in certain ways, and give the learner feedback about that performance. For example, airline pilots sharpen their flying skills in computer-generated flight simulators, which exactly duplicate the experience of flying in different types of aircraft.

V

Communication and Disabilities

One of the most important uses of communication systems and technologies has been to assist people with disabilities. In 1838 the Frenchman Louis Braille demonstrated a system of imprinting raised dots on paper standing for letters of the alphabet, numbers, and punctuation. With this system, blind people could read by running their fingers across the dots, and could write by impressing the raised dots into paper using a frame called a Braille slate, or a typewriter-like Braille writer. Sign language—a system of making signs for letters, words, and groups of words using fingered signs and body gestures—was formally developed in the 18th century in Paris, France, as a system of communication for deaf people. Alexander Graham Bell originally began work on the telephone as a way to help hearing-impaired people to hear more clearly.

Today many new systems assist people with disabilities. The Kurzweil Reading Machine, for example, electronically scans printed text and speaks the words aloud using speech-synthesis software. Some personal computers can now read typed-in text aloud for blind or visually impaired people. Personal computers can also show text on the screen large enough for visually impaired people to read, or can be equipped with touch-sensitive screens or pointers for people whose physical disabilities make them unable to type (see User Interface). Computers can also recognize a person's voice, and with special software can turn lights on and off, engage security systems, or make emergency medical, police, or fire calls. This technology is especially helpful for people who need to use a wheelchair or who have limited use of their limbs.

Several new technologies have been developed to help deaf people use the telephone and watch television. Instead of communicating by voice, deaf telephone customers and their families and friends can communicate with TTYs, named for the original device called a teletypewriter (they are now also known as TDDs—telecommunications devices for the deaf). The TTY is a device with a display that allows customers to type in a message, and to read it on another TTY at the other end. TTY users can call any other phone user in the United States by calling a relay service; a trained operator takes down the message, and then calls the other person and relays the message. Or TTY users can call other people who have personal computers, modems, and the right software to decode the TTY message.

Televisions in the United States today are equipped with closed-captioning devices. Most broadcast and cable television signals are sent out with closed captions, the text of the words that are being spoken or descriptions of music or sound effects, encoded into part of the video signal. Some programs are broadcast (or recorded onto videotape) with additional sound tracks, so that blind people can hear not only the dialogue, music, and sound effects of a program, but also an announcer quietly describing the pictures.

VI

Communication and Law

Societies have attempted to regulate communication through customs and laws since ancient times (see Censorship). Today many societies regard freedom of communication as a basic human right and have enacted laws to protect this right. In the United States, freedom of verbal speech and print communication is protected by the 1st Amendment to the Constitution (see Freedom of Speech; Freedom of the Press). The government may only censor material that constitutes libel, slander, obscenity, perjury, sedition, or criminal conduct.

The United States government has also enacted laws to help regulate and govern the growth of communications industries. As radio and telephone technologies developed in the early 1900s, the potential for these media to interconnect rural areas and cities and to promote safety became apparent. To ensure that telephone wire systems and radio airwave systems were set up and run in the most efficient way, Congress passed the Communications Act in 1934 and created the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). This independent government agency regulates wire, cable, and airwave communication through such activities as assigning portions of the radio frequency band to radio stations and inspecting transmitting equipment.

As new communication media have developed, such as television and cellular telephony, the FCC has grown to supervise and regulate those industries as well. In an attempt to keep pace with advances made in communications technology and changes in the industry, Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, a rewritten and radically different version of the Communications Act of 1934. One goal of the act was to increase competition by reducing previous regulations and making it easier for new businesses to enter communications industries. The act also contained a section called the Communications Decency Act, a controversial measure designed to restrict access by minors to indecent material, especially over the Internet. In 1997 the United States Supreme Court declared this section to be unconstitutional because it violated 1st Amendment rights to free speech.

To avoid regulation or censorship of content by the government, the film industry in the United States agreed to become self-regulating in the 1920s. A rating system based on content was eventually established in 1968 and has been modified several times since. A film's rating indicates whether the film is suitable for young viewers, or whether they must be accompanied by an adult. In 1996 the television industry in the United Stated agreed to develop a similar rating system for television programs.

VII

Communication and Cultural Change

Since the time of writing, communication technologies have had a major influence on society. The Canadian historian Harold Innis wrote that communication technologies were the key elements in the development of all the great ancient societies: Egypt was transformed by papyrus and written hieroglyphics; ancient Babylonia used cuneiform writing, impressed indelibly into clay tablets to develop a great economic system; the ancient Greeks' love of the spoken word led them to perfect public speaking, persuasive rhetoric, drama, and philosophy; for administering their empire, the Romans developed an unparalleled system of government that depended on the Roman alphabet; and of course paper and the printing press extended new ways of thinking across Europe and paved the way for the European Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation.

Later Marshall McLuhan (a student of Innis's) argued that radio, movies, and television had just as much impact, if not more, on modern society as printing. The difference between these media is that while printing encourages logical thinking that lays out ideas one step at a time, electronic media disrupt logical, linear thinking. Electronic media create the sense of experiencing everything at once, in no particular order and disconnected from the sources of the messages.

Most observers agree that communication media and technologies have contributed to a society that is changing very rapidly. Three key issues have arisen in the tide of this rapid change: individual privacy, coverage of politics in the media, and the availability of information.

A

Privacy

New communication and information technologies have enabled many organizations and people to collect, organize, and sell information about other people and organizations, both quickly and cheaply. The easy availability of personal information makes banking, education, health care, and sales much more convenient for both consumers and sellers. Credit card and automated teller machine (ATM) systems would be impossible without large databases of information available on demand. Scanners in the supermarket rapidly and accurately record every item that passes over them, making grocery checkouts faster and error free. Companies maintain huge mailing lists of customers that record not only their names, addresses, and phone numbers, but also major recent purchases, credit ratings, and demographic information (such as sex, age, income, and educational level) that helps the companies identify target markets for specific products.

The negative side to all this shared information is that there is little control over who sees or uses this personal information. Medical records are shared not only by doctors' offices and hospitals but are regularly made available to insurance companies as well. Auto insurance companies obtain information about traffic violations from state and local police departments. Credit report errors occur often and can be very damaging to a person's financial situation. Many Americans worry that having so much of their personal information available to so many others may hurt their privacy.

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