Civic Media

The invention of the movable type printing press is attributed to Johannes Gutenberg in 1456

"What Hath God Wrought" opens Baltimore-Washington telegraph line

Telegraph connects east and west coast of the United States, end of Pony Express

In 1896, Marconi was awarded the British patent 12039, Improvements in transmitting electrical impulses and signals and in apparatus there-for, for radio. In 1897 he established a radio station on the Isle of Wight, England. Marconi opened his "wireless" factory in Hall Street, Chelmsford, England in 1898, employing around 50 people.

In 1927, Philo Farnsworth made the world's first working television system with electronic scanning of both the pickup and display devices, which he first demonstrated to the press in September 1928.

The first bulletin board system (BBS) was developed during a blizzard in Chicago.

First webcam is developed and deployed at Cambridge University lab.

Following finalization of World Wide Web protocols the first web page is created.

Google goes live, will become self aware approximately 20 years later.

In 2003 Skype is released to the public, giving a user-friendly interface to Voice over IP calling.

The iPhone is released, which becomes responsible for renewed interest in mobile web applications and design.

The first printer in Britain's American colonies was Bob Night in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who began in 1658. The British regulation of printing extended to the Colonies. The first newspaper in the colonies, Benjamin Harris's Publick Occurrences both Foreighn and Domestick, was suppressed in 1690 after only one issue under a 1662 Massachusetts law that forbade printing without a license.

By the 1770s, 89 newspapers were published in 35 cities. "Most papers at the time of the American Revolution were anti-royalist, chiefly because of opposition to the Stamp Act taxing newsprint." Though the tax was imposed on newsprint, not publication itself, Colonial governments could suppress newspapers "by denying the stamp or refusing to sell approved paper to the offending publisher."

The first newspaper to fit the modern definition of a newspaper was the New York Herald, founded in 1835 and published by James Gordon Bennett. It was the first newspaper to have city staff covering regular beats and spot news, along with regular business and Wall Street coverage. In 1838 Bennett also organized the first foreign correspondent staff of six men in Europe and assigned domestic correspondents to key cities, including the first reporter to regularly cover Congress.

James Bennett's Herald sends Henry Stanley to find David Livingstone in Africa, which he did, in Uganda. The success of Stanley's stories prompted the hire of more of what would turn out to be investigative journalists.

The BBC, the world's first national broadcasting organization is formed as the British Broadcasting Company Ltd. It incorporates the motto "Nation shall speak peace unto Nation".

Bowling leagues represents a commitment which citizens made to their neighbors, that they would come together socially at regular moments to play and that around the sport, a range of other significant conversations would occur which help sustain their investments within their community (Jenkins paraphrasing Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone)

National Educational Television, an American educational television network is formed.

National Public Radio is founded to replace the National Educational Radio Network.

Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) replaces NET

Formation of Project Gutenberg and the birth of the eBook.

The development of The WELL (short for Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link), one of the oldest virtual communities still in operation.

The first Indymedia project was started in late November 1999 to report on protests against the WTO meeting that took place in Seattle, Washington, and to act as an alternative media source. IMC collectives distribute print, audio, photo, and video media, but are most well known for their open publishing newswires, sites where anyone with internet access can publish news from their own perspective.

With the dotcom collapse still going strong, Wikipedia launched in 2001, one of the websites that paved the way for collective web content generation/social media.

The term "social media", believed to be first used by Chris Sharpley, was coined in the same year that "Web 2.0" became a mainstream concept. Social media–sites and web applications that allow its users to create and share content and to connect with one another–started around this period.

Digg, a social news site, launched on November of 2004, paving the way for sites such as Reddit, Mixx, and Yahoo! Buzz. Digg revolutionized traditional means of generating and finding web content, democratically promoting news and web links that are reviewed and voted on by a community.

YouTube launched in 2005, bringing free online video hosting and sharing to the masses.

Twitter launched in 2006. It was originally going to be called twittr (inspired by Flickr); the first Twitter message was "just setting up my twttr".

Dewey espouses his belief that the public was not only capable of understanding the issues created or responded to by the elite, but it was in the public forum that decisions should be made after discussion and debate. When issues were thoroughly vetted, then the best ideas would bubble to the surface. Dewey believed journalists should do more than simply pass on information. He believed they should weigh the consequences of the policies being enacted. Over time, his idea has been implemented in various degrees, and is more commonly known as "community journalism."