Celluloid, Wax,Pirates and Bits

What did people do before there was television? Did your great grandfather forlornly walk the streets until someone invented the movies?  We cannot avoid the products and practices of media corporations.  But there was a time before electronic media became so pervasive.  What we take to be commonplace is but the latest development in a rather choppy line of inventors, artists, megalomaniacs and indeed pirates.

This series of posts will identify some of the major developments in Mass Media from the late 19th Century to the end of the 20th Century.We will look at the origins of Cinema (Celluloid), the transformation of popular music (Wax ) the rise and fall of Pirate Radio and the emergence of the digital era.  Every major change in Media has alongside it an enabling technology.  What is not always so clear are the shifting social conditions that connected Medium, Technology and Expression.  It is the links between these that this blog will explore.