Audio and visual technologies created a new media age in the 19th century with photography, the telephone, audio recording and reproduction, and film. Electromagnetic waves made it possible to transmit sound and images into everyday life in real time, and radio and television gave birth to a previously unknown mass communication. A new public emerged whose view of the world was shaped by the mass media and for whom information conveyed by the media was omnipresent. Newspaper publishers, as well as radio and television broadcasting companies operated as international media corporations. The Internet ultimately accelerated the entire process immensely and brought networking to completely new dimensions.
At the beginning of the 21st century, we have a booming book market as well as the digitalisation and virtualisation of all media, and libraries that have followed suit and changed their face for ever. Search engines filter our world of knowledge.
German Museum of Books and Writing "Signs - Books - Networks"
