Welcome to this digital portfolio for my final project for AMST 0339 Home: The Way We Live. This portfolio is a collection of research, pictures and information all centered around my research topic which is: The Significance of the Evolution of Technological Forms of News Media for War News Consumption in the Home.
When I think of a home, I think of a place where family comes together whether it is to share meals or tell each other about their days. However, that ideal image of the home has changed over time, especially when considering the role technological advances have played- take the microwave, for example. With instruments like the microwave, families can simply heat meals up and not have to wait for dinner to be served. This means less family meals which are often times seen as opportunities to bond. However, this portfolio does not look into microwaves and family bonding through dinner meals. This project aims to look into news consumption in the home and how that has evolved due to technological advances including going from the radio to the television, and the television to smart technology like smart phones and tablets. This project aims to understand how technological differences affected war news consumption in the home by specifically analyzing the role of radio in WWII, the role of television in the Vietnam War, and the role of smart technology in current acts of war.
To establish the importance of the chosen news media devices, we will look at how they were advertised in their respective eras. Having a full understanding of the importance of the chosen news media devices in their respective eras will help us create a strong foundation to then analyze their roles in war news consumption in the home. After looking at advertisements, we will analyze captivating images of how the chosen news media mechanisms were/are used in the home for war news consumption. By analyzing these images, we are able to understand the importance of these devices in their respective war as they not only update families with the most recent news of their respective wars, but also bring, or even divide, families.
We will start this analysis by first taking a look into the history of the radio and the role it played in WWII, specifically in regard to FDR’s Fireside Chats during WWII. FDR’s Fireside Chats were praised for bringing families together often depicted with families gathered around their radios to listen to the chats that brought them hope in a time that hope was lost because of the war. However, years later, the radio would soon be replaced with the television. The television brought a visual aspect to media that the radio simply could not give its audience. Instead of gathering around radios, families then gathered around televisions to watch the news instead of listening to it. The importance of the television in war news consumption in the home is especially seen when analyzing the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War has been coined “the Television War” and “the living-room war.” Television was able to bring an aspect of war into homes that had not been done as successfully before, even if it was mostly horrific depictions of the US military in the Vietnam War. Televisions continued to evolve, as did radios, but none could compete with smart technology. Smart technology, specifically smart phones, were an easy, portable way to get the news. News networks like CNN, Fox News, and NBC adapted to the technological advances and created their own smart phone apps, so that they were available to their consumers in a new way. Now, if a person wants to keep up with the war Syrian Civil War or even the nuclear threats from North Korea, they can opt to receive notifications on their phones instead of sitting down to watch and/or hear war news. Although this makes war news consumption much easier for smart phone holders, it changes the home dynamic by creating a new excuse for families to not feel the need to gather around their radios/ televisions for consumption of war news anymore. Instead, members of a family could simply stay in their individual rooms, open their smart phones and read war news on their favorite news app.
By using advertisements and images of the chosen news media devices in their respective eras not only are we able to better understand the history of the radio, television and smart technology, but we are also able to see how smart technology has overpowered these older forms of war news media and how this evolution of technological advances have directly affected the home during WWII, the Vietnam War and even in present time with the rise of social media as a form of news consumption.