Electronic media

Electronic media are media that use electronics or electromechanical means for the audience to access the content. This is in contrast to static media (mainly print media), which today are most often created digitally, but do not require electronics to be accessed by the end user in the printed form. The primary electronic media sources familiar to the general public are video recordings, audio recordings, multimedia presentations, slide presentations, CD-ROM and online content. Most new media are in the form of digital media. However, electronic media may be in either analogue electronics data or digital electronic data format.

Although the term is usually associated with content recorded on a storage medium, recordings are not required for live broadcasting and online networking.

Any equipment used in the electronic communication process (e.g. television, radio, telephone, game console, handheld device) may also be considered electronic media.

Wire and transmission lines emerged as communication tools, starting with the telegraph in the late 18th century. Samuel Morse invented the telegraph in 1832, introducing wires to transmit electrical signals over long distances. In 1844, the first successful telegraph line was established in the United States, and in the 1850s, telegraph cables were laid across the Atlantic connecting North America and Europe. At the same time the telegraph was becoming mainstream, the need to transmit images over wire emerged. The first commercially successful fax machine was developed by Elisha Gray in 1861, allowing printed images to be transmitted over a wire.

The telephone was another breakthrough in electronic communication, allowing people to communicate using voice rather than written messages. Alexander Graham Bell pioneered the first successful telephone transmission in 1876, and by the 1890s, telephone lines were being laid worldwide. Since all these significant breakthroughs relied on transmission lines for communication, a minor improvement was made by the English engineer Oliver Heaviside who patented the coaxial cable in 1880. The coaxial cable allowed for greater bandwidth and longer transmission distances.

Significant improvements in the mode of transmission were made in the last seventy years with the introduction of fiber optics, wireless transmission, satellite transmission, free-space optics, and the internet. Fiber optics was first developed in the 1950s but became commercially viable in the 1970s. On the other hand, wireless communication made a major improvement in the transmission mode, doing away with wires and introducing electromagnetic waves. Guglielmo Marconi invented the radio transmission in 1897, and by the 1900s, radio transmission had become a mainstream source of news, entertainment, and military communication. Satellite communication allowed data to be transmitted over much longer distances than possible. The United States pioneered satellite communication in 1958 when it first launched Explorer 1.

free-space optics (FSO), which uses lasers to transmit data through the air, was first developed in the 1960s. However, it was only in the 1990s that the technology advanced enough to become commercially viable. The internet, on the other hand, emerged in the second half of the last century. In the 1960s, the first protocols for transferring files were developed, making it possible to transfer files between computers. In 1989, Tim Berners Lee created the World Wide Web, making it much easier to share information through hyperlinks. In 1996, the Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) was introduced, allowing for live audio and video streaming over the internet. RTP was a breakthrough in online entertainment, allowing real-time events to be broadcast live to audiences worldwide.

The history of display and output technology is long and fascinating, beginning in the early 19th century with the development of the galvanometer, which was used to detect and measure small electrical currents. In 1844, the telegraph sounder was developed, which used an electromagnet to produce a clicking sound that corresponded to the transmission of electrical signals over a telegraph line. It was followed by the telephone receiver, which used a diaphragm to convert electrical signals into sound. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the first forms of artificial light were developed, including red light and neon. These were used in various applications, including lighting for displays and signs.