Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 5
Let's talk:
communicating the
luxury message
online
“The newest computer can merely mix … the oldest problem in the
relations between human beings, and in the end the communicator
will be confronted with the old problem, of what to say and how to
say it.”
—Edward R. Murrow
When the government of Venice produced the first handwritten newspaper
Notizie Scritte
in 1556, it was in response to the need to convey news on
the economic, political and military affairs of the state in a quick and
efficient manner. Long before this period, the Chinese were already using
handwritten messages on silk to transmit information on the affairs of the
state to government officials on a daily basis although this took time to pro-
duce, transmit and read, and lacked the desired quickness and efficiency
of information dissemination. By 1582 China had began to publish news-
sheets for private broadcasts in and around Beijing. Gradually, the idea of
the newspaper as a source of daily news for the public's digestion spread
beyond China to other parts of Asia, even as it became widely adopted in
Europe. The newspaper became popular when Johann Carolus published
what has been recognized as the first modern era newspaper in 1605 in
Strasbourg, then an independent imperial city in Germany and which is
now in France. In no time, newspapers became adopted in Germany (1609),
the Netherlands (1618), England (1620), France (1631) and Sweden (1645).
The latter still publishes its first newspaper,
Oprechte Haerlemse Courant
,
in an electronic format online. Stateside, the American population was not
to get a taste of the newspaper until 1690 when Benjamin Harris published
Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick
and subsequently
The
Boston News-Letter
in 1704 (Figure 5.1) which became the first continuously
