Television in the Information Age

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Television in the Information Age

Introduction

Television. Most Americans today cannot imagine life without it. It is how we relax, laugh, learn, and stay up to date on current events. The inventors of television may not have realized the impact of combining sound with moving pictures. For the first time in the history of the world we were and are able to peek into the lives of people we will never meet and visit places we will never go. It has even changed the way we communicate with each other in our everyday lives! Who has not heard or used the phrase coined by the sitcom, Seinfield, “…not that there’s anything wrong with that….”? This analysis will first examine the origins of television and the evolution of television technology throughout the years. Next, it will examine the current trends within the industry, and how our government has shaped these trends, the companies that are involved in the industry, and finally, the future of television in the new sub-age of the Information Age, the Digital Age.

History

The Information Age has its origins in the late nineteenth century when people began to see a need for ways to communicate large amounts of information to large numbers of people over a large geographical area quickly and accurately. Each Information Age invention acted as a catalyst for the next innovation, which without fail was an improvement upon its predecessor. This continuous improvement was made possible by constant research and discovery in the sciences, which enabled the development of new technologies crucial to the advancement of the objectives of the Information Age. The invention of the radio caused scientists to begin thinking about a way to develop an infor...

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...result in the inseparable linkage of the two technologies. In the process of this linkage the TV in the traditional sense will start looking more and more like a computer. When this process is complete, the analog TV may have to step down from its position as the most influential Information Age invention to date and hand its “title” on to the computer. Forty years from now children may not even know what an analog TV is or how they work save what they read in a school history textbook. Computers have infiltrated nearly every area of life in general including medicine, transportation, art, music, -the list is endless, and therefore, its infiltration of TV is not surprising. For more information about the history, evolution, mechanisms, technology, marketplace, or future of TV and current trends in the industry please see this analysis’ supplemental links.

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