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Services Products Media

Abstract

In the world of journalism and advertising there have been many changes in the field over the years. From the first form of media the newspaper to the latest internet those looking to promote services and products. Agriculture Communications students study in school how to design web sites, public speaking, journalism and graphic design skills.

The students use these skills to help clients develop making campaigns. It is important to understand how the different media forms were developed and how they have changed over the years. By keeping up with trends helps those people that advise companies on advertising their products and services can better serve their customers.

For almost every member of the communications field using the media is important for getting everyday task completed. While in school students studying agriculture communications learn to write journalistically, lay-out web sites and other designs and learn how to use the media to sale or promote a product or services. Before mass media was developed, clients looking to promote their products or services had to rely on word of mouth. Word of mouth worked well until society started to globalize and become interested in what others around them were doing.

With the creation of newspapers, radio, television and now the internet, the media became extremely important to those looking to market their products and services. Since the creation of mass media with the newspaper it has been important for those devising marketing strategies to look at the history of media. It has also been important to see the changes made in the industry, in the words of the Buggles hit song “video killed the radio star”. While this saying isn’t completely true, it does hold some inkling of truth.

By looking at the historical trends in media it allows for future growth in the marketing world. With the understanding of how many of forms were developed and used advertisers can figure out how to use the form to their advantage. Advertisers have seen many changes in the industry; many have seen the change of looking for information in the newspaper and books to researching it all online.

It is important for people in the communications field to know which way the industry is heading next, in order to best serve their customers. Understanding where and how newspapers, radio, television and internet are and were used in society is the best way for members of the field to know in which direction the industry is going.

Like the United States the media has played a huge role in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is about two times as big as the state of New York. The United Kingdom is considered by many as a hot spot in Europe, but in reality the United Kingdom is just northwest of mainland Europe. The United Kingdom is made up of two sections Great Brittan, which consist of England, Wales and Scotland, and the Northern one-sixth of Ireland.

Though the United Kingdom is twice the size of New York it has three times the population. The United Kingdom has nearly 70 thousand people with nearly eight thousand of those people living in the city of London. English is the dominate language of those in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom has a high literacy rate of nearly 100 percent.

One of the most recognizable symbols of the United Kingdom for many is the Queen. The United Kingdom is run by a constitutional monarchy. Though the Queen is a symbol of government for the United Kingdom she has little power. The governing body in the United Kingdom is made up of two bodies. The House of Commons and the House of Lords.

Even though it sounds similar to the Congress of the United States, there are differences. Members of the House of Commons, like the United States, are elected, but members of the House of Lords are appointed. Economically the United Kingdom is a strong country with a low unemployment rate of just below three percent. The United Kingdom is in such good economic standing its currency of pounds sterling is worth twice as much a US dollar. The major exports of the United Kingdom are manufactured goods, fuels, chemicals, food, beverages, and tobacco.

Only one point five percent of the labor force is involved in agriculture. The United Kingdom has all of the amities of modern society with 471 airports and numerous fast food restaurants like McDonalds and Burger King. The media has played a large role in helping the United Kingdom become a developed country. The development of the country can be seen by following the trends in media over the years. Over the years media has helped countries, like the United Kingdom, to be more of a developed society.

Part of understanding how to use media and its importance is by understanding the history behind it. The earliest form of mass media is the newspaper. The newspaper hasn’t always been called a newspaper though. In its earliest form a newspaper was called a coranto and then when daily newspapers came out they were called diurnal. Diurnals were usually sent out daily to inform citizens of local events. Normally the stories were concerned with what the King and Parliament were doing. By 1450 Johann Gutenberg had developed a printing press in Germany.

Before the press was created books and other material were hand written. These materials were not always accurate and were usually expense. It didn’t take the British long to get on board with using the printing press. By 1487 William Caxton introduced the press to Great Britain. Caxton established a printing company in Westminster that published many of the popular books of the time. By 1530 Henry VIII made it a requirement that anyone printing would have to be royally approved before being allowed to print.

With a growing concern of the population to know what was going on around them in the world newspaper became more popular. The spread of newspapers helped to educate the population. The first corante was published in London in 1621. The oldest newspaper in the United Kingdom is known as The Worcester Postman. In the year 2000 408 newspapers were sold for every 1000 adult members of the population. There are 10 major daily newspapers in the United Kingdom. These newspapers have a daily circulation of 12 million copies.

In 1903 a newspaper called Daily Mirror was established for women. It sold 276,000 copies on the first day, but sales by January of 1904 had dropped to only 24,801 copies. Before newspapers really the only way to advertise a service or product was by word of mouth. Newspapers started selling space to advertisers around 1855 after a government tax was removed. By selling space it allowed newspapers to make up for lost money. It is important for advertisers to know the circulation numbers and type of readers newspapers have.

There are many factors to consider when selecting a newspaper to promote a product or service. For example in the United Kingdom if you sale cell phones, but only in Scotland you wouldn’t want advertise your cell phones in London papers. Newspapers being the first form of mass media have seen competition from other forms of media, but have adapted and continue to remain an important outlet for information.

The beginnings of radio can be traced back to a member of the United Kingdom’s society. James Clerk a Scottish mathematician and physicist wrote a paper that suggested that signals could be sent through space without wires in 1873. Heinrich Hertz proved Clerk’s paper to be true four years later. Hertz really didn’t care much about the practical uses of his invention. It wasn’t until 1896 that the technology Hertz invented was put to use. Guglielmo Marconi used the knowledge of radio waves to send a signal in a two mile radius. Marconi moved to London at the age of twenty-three and established Marconi Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company.

He later changed the name to British Marconi. In 1906 what is considered to be the world’s first broadcast was completed by Reginald Fessenden on Christmas Eve. The broadcast mostly went out to ships in the New York Harbor. In 1922 Marconi set up the British Broadcasting Company, which is known to most as the BBC. In November of 1922 the BBC officially opened three stations in three days and a fourth station later that month. The beginning use of radio was to send messages from ship- to- land. It was later discovered that radio could be used as a way to pass along information and as a form of entertainment. The types of radio programs have had major changes over the years.

In the early days of radio broadcast programs were usually live and exciting. Similar to radio stations today stations paid the bills by selling air time to advertisers. One major difference in decisions made by today’s advertisers and those in the past is that today advertisers choose a station that reaches a certain type of audience. Now day’s radio stations usually play a certain type of music like country or classical. Advertisers must consider what type of listener they are trying to reach. A western store would be spending their money wiser by buying air time on a country station then a classical station. Like newspapers radio stations have expanded and changed to meet the ever changing demands of their clients.

The invention of television happened not long after radio. During the 1920’s Scotsman John Baird invented and patented the mechanical television system. In 1925 Baird showed the first image of a moving object at the Royal Institute in London. By 1929 Baird had worked a deal with the BBC to broadcast on his system. In 1930 the BBC would begin making regular broadcast. The first outside broadcast was of George VI’s coronation procession on May 12^th, 1937. Soon television would take a back-sit to World War II. It was not until the end of 1949 before the BBC started to spread to areas other then London. Daily News and weather weren’t read on-air until 1954.

Color was brought into the picture in 1967. Into present day there are now satellites, digital television and high definition television for customers to choice from. With television growing every more popular many advertisers moved to making commercials for their product or service to be seen on television to attract clients. In 1930 the first commercial was made. Like all other areas of media advertisers must consider what type of audience they want to reach by their commercial.

In 1998 The United Kingdom spent 235 minutes per day watching television; that is nearly four hours a day. Radio and newspapers only have their audience’s attention for a short time compared to television. Television stations do ratings of programs and from those rating are able to tell clients what commercial time slot and which channels are best for airing their commercial. By knowing the demographics; age, race, level of income, etc; those companies looking to sell their product or services can reach the consumer they feel will buy their service or products.

With each new form of media the previous forms have had to change and adapted with the wave of the future. Each form depends on the sales of advertisements to stay alive. While some forms creations may have only challenged a closely related form every form of media as been challenged and been forced to change because of the development of internet. The internet was designed in the 1960’s. It works because the data being sent is broken down into small packets and then resembled once it reaches its destination.

The system used to send these packets were called packet-switching networks. Europe was the location for the early packet-switching networks. The first large scale use of the internet was by the United States defense department around 1970. It wasn’t until 1991 that Tim Berners-Lee developed the World Wide Web and the internet we now know today. The growth of the internet has lead to many people getting information, which in the past would have been in a newspaper or on radio or television, much faster. Before the development of internet people had to wait until the six o’clock news to know what as going on around them.

Now if you are around a computer that has a connection to the net you can find the latest news, pay-bills, shop, read the newspaper and even watch television or listen to radio in a matter of seconds. Many companies have gone to advertising their products and services online. Many companies are starting to invest in the internet doing things as simple as buying a banner to be displayed on the side of a web page to spending hundreds of dollars to have a web designer develop a web site to sale and market their product or service. All of the potential uses companies have of using the internet to their advantage have yet to be seen because the internet is only about 17 years old and has just recently become more common in homes.

The media has been around for hundreds of years. It has changed forms and adapted to growing demands a number of times, but continues to play a vital role in people’s lives. Companies looking to use the media to advertise their business are also continually changing to keep up with the changes in media. The newspaper industry was originally for announcements of the King’s and royal events.

Now newspapers are comprised of classifieds, business, sports and many other sections for readers. Radio broadcast over the years have gone from giving information and comedy programs to now being an outlet for music with news and information broadcasted throughout the day. Television has seen very few changes, but is besides internet the newest form of media. Television has gone from basic antenna to digital, high definition and satellite. The newest media to come about and cause change in the industry is the internet. Advertising companies have adjusted to the changes in media forms.

Advertisements have gone from newspapers, to radio ads, television commercials and now running banners and web sites on the internet. As to the trends in media in the future it is still left to be seen, but one thing is for certain with the continuing growth of technology, changes in the future are inevitable.

Those companies looking to promote their product and services will have to continue to adjust to the new forms of technology. Were the media will go in the future is really unknown, but it will change again. In fact with the development of MP 3 players the media could see a change in the ways news is presented and where advertisers advertise in the near future.

Resources

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Mathias. 21 January 2001,. British TV History. 24 November 2007. http://www.tvhistory.btinternet.co.uk/index.html

McQuail, D, McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory, 5^th ed. Thousand Oaks, California. SAFE Publications Inc. 2005.

MDS975 Sites. 2003-2007. UK Radio a Brief History. 23 November 2007. http://www.arar93.dsl.pipex.com/mds975/Content/ukradio.html

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