Roaring 20's Analysis

In the 21st century, television is a dominant technology in our society. With numerous major satellite and cable giants coupled with the big name brands releasing TV after TV, it’s hard to avoid the mass media, entertainment, and information portrayed through a television screen. Because television plays such an important role in our society today, it’s important to recognize the historical context of its invention. Our purpose is to review the invention and functionality behind the original RCA television. We will also reflect on television’s ability and process of becoming a global medium, the economic, social, political, and cultural impacts from its invention, and television’s limitations.

For the first time ever in the 1920’s, more people in the United States were living in cities rather than on farms. This decade was appropriately titled the “Roaring 20’s” because of the major economic, political and social changes that took place. Between 1920 and 1929, the wealth of American citizens increased

Philo Farnsworth, the creator, had ideas about how to create the first television since he was 14-years-old. His goal for the television system was to have a system that could show 400 lines per frame (Landen, 2009). This first television camera tube was named the “Image Dissector”, “which would dissect an image line-by-line with a pulsating electrical charge and then transmit these elements”. The receiver for the television was built by using a chemistry flask, which Phil called the “Image Oscillite”. In order to rid the blurry picture, the “sawtooth” waveform was created. The “Iconoscope” was created and reinvented many times before perfecting the picture on the television. The first TV sets uses the standard proposed by the FFC, which was 441 lines and 30 frames (Landen,