Where would Media be without the Alphabet
April 9, 2013
Historically, the goal of media was to tell communities about the news and to chronicle historical events. Media grew out of the custom of story telling. While the stories (and news) differs from culture to culture, they all share a common building block: the alphabet.
Semiotics, the
study of symbols, is at the root of all consonants and vowels. Many letters and
sounds derive from the same set of symbols. Over time those symbols have
evolved. For example, the Latin alphabet evolved from the Greek alphabet which
is a phonetic language. It has been speculated that the Latin influence in the
English language was major.
The Romans used the
Greek alphabet as a basis for their own letter compilation, creating upper and
lower case lettering. Writing appeared in straight lines contributed to the notion
that typography was significant. It also standardized the alphabet which
created an ideal climate for one of the world’s most impactful inventions.
The printing
press changed everything for the media in 1439 because it made reading
(learning) more accessible. Movable type
made it possible to more easily produce written materials without the laborious
efforts of scribes. Mass produced books led to mass production of news and
media around the world.
Today’s
cyberspace world – filled with the most extraordinary graphics - still relies
upon the alphabet. Imagine where we’d be if the alphabet had not been able to
keep up with our need to communicate.
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