Each new communications technology has had a greater impact on society than the one before. The telegraph changed society indirectly, by transforming the workings of government and industry. But the telephone and radio had direct impacts on people's working and social lives.
For hundreds of years, mail coaches and couriers were the typical means of getting dispatches back to newspapers. But from the late 1850s onwards all that changed.
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The early telegraph was only really used for business and official messages. Most ordinary people relied chiefly on posted letters to exchange news and views with their friends and families. But telegrams became the ...
Faster communications aided the fight against crime, making it increasingly difficult for criminals to disappear or to use distance to evade justice.
At the same time, ...
Wireless and television broadcasting helped to create a sense of a more equal society. They also created a sense of shared experience, uniting whole sections of national populations. The General Strike of 1926 saw ...
From the 1950s onwards, television began to unite global populations. For the first time, there was simultaneous proof of landmark events: wars, crises, assassinations, triumphs and tragedies, with the same images ...