TRADITIONAL COMMUNICATION AND TECHNOLOGY

OLDEN DAYS

In the golden old days the communication methods adopted were in various
forms. These included the use of myths, folklore, story-telling, proverbs, carvings on
monuments, singing songs, religious customs and procedures etc.,

These were some of the methods used in the olden days for communicating
information to the larger group of individuals and apart from that there were other
ways of communicating between different parties who are very far apart by the
usage of homing pigeons.

The above methods were useful for mass communication and ensured that
the message was delivered to group in a coherent manner and was visible the
medium was used up until the early part of the 20 th century. This method of
communication was not so reliable and did not offer much depth of coverage to the
masses and the effectiveness of the message was very difficult to assess as the
information that was passed on was more relevant and localised to the geographical
location or the origin of the communication. The communication in the older days
was concentrated and the information passed down through this medium was related
on local customs and procedures only and the same was not feasible to be passed
on to the larger groups.

This created a following in the local groups and then the same used to spread
by the word of mouth communication and it used to grow in popularity depending
upon the relevance of the same to the culture and the importance of the message
that is being communicated. This sort of message communication did not have many
options and the deployment of the communication used to take lot of time and effort
for the person who wanted to communicate the same.

Middle Age

Then came the development in technology and the advent of radio

communication which was great breakthrough and the communication at the same
time gained prominence as it usually replicated the word of mouth communication
and enabled the people who intended to communicate effectively with a wider range
of people and reach of the medium grew tremendously both geographically and
number of people it can reach out.

This was the generation where there was a development on the type of
messages that were communicated and the growth of industry also created an
unique requirement of communicating in this media for the sale of their products and
services which encouraged more and more investments and improvement of this
communication medium to cover wider groups of population.
 Even during this period most of the radio communications were state
controlled and the advertisements or messages were severely censored or curtailed
and only basic information about the product could only be passed on to the
customer and infrastructure required to reach the greater audience was still not
available as the communication was under the governments control in most of the
countries.

The industrial age brought with the requirement of creating newer markets
and to reach them effectively there was a tremendous requirement of new medium of
communication as in the middle age the communication was basically verbal in
nature and the effectiveness of the message was affected due to this fact.

Modern Age – Technological Advancements

Then arrived the modern age where the technological advancements have
taken on a new sphere and had grown very fast. This was the age of communication
where the medium grew very fast with the introduction of television, which was
followed up with computers and internet and satellite communication, mobile phones
all these provided more opportunities to the corporations and the people who
required communicating to the larger population.

The television has filled the gap of visual and audio communication medium
by effectively bringing the olden and Middle Ages communication methods and
thereby ensuring there was an effective method of passing information or message
across to the population.

The economic growth of most economies encouraged the corporations to

bring their products to different parts of the world and along with the corporations
required to convey the message of availability of their products to new customers
and the most effective means was television.

The next form of communication medium is Internet which has grown very
much in the recent years; this brought in the added dimension of interactive
communication where in people can communicate and reply back or buy the
products or services over the internet and from the comfort of their homes.

The other factor in this communication growth was the development of mobile
technology and the advent of mobile phones which has virtually enabled everyone to
communicate with each other on the move. And this also brought with it the option of
mobile marketing which is catching up nowadays, where the messages are passed
on to mass markets with varied information like advisories or solicitation messages
and this enabled targeted communication only to required people which is more
beneficial and effective to the sender of the message.
Conclusion

As can be seen from the above the growth of communication is directly linked
to the advancements in technology which has brought in this change of how we
communicate and interact with each other and the corporate, interested parties in
mass communication to reach out to wider geographies and people with the use of
technology.

One of the basic requirements of human beings is to socialise and for

socialising we require to communicate, and this has been followed since the early
ages. However, technology has been the differentiating factor which enabled us to
use so many new methods and ways of communicating. And the future is being
looked for more and more ways in which we can communicate this include the
integration of technologies like the mobile and internet and television into one device
thereby enabling the user to choose the medium and the corporate can at the same
time derive the benefit of the synchronised devices which they can target to reach
the required person and the market can be segmented accordingly. These are some
of the advantages derived from technological advancements to communication.