ÜDS-2010-Autumn-15
Dec. 26, 2010 • 1 min
When prehistoric man returned home from a hunt, he was almost certainly asked the question we would like to ask today: “What happened?” Quite possibly, he replied in a factual manner, providing a short report of the land covered, the number of animals spotted, and the results. His face-to-face communication was limited only to those within the sight and sound of the speaker. Either because of this or because he thought his communication should be recorded in more permanent form, the caveman eventually began to draw his message, the report of his latest adventurous hunt, on the wall of the cave. This opened up a whole range of possibilities: The wall was there twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The caveman could go about his other business, whatever that may have been, and still know that his message was being communicated, for the audience was communicating not with the caveman himself, but with the wall. This was the beginning of mass communication – impersonal communication with a diverse audience that has a limited opportunity to respond – and much was gained from it.