Beginnings of Journalism: From Beacons to the Digital Age

Journalism grew from human signaling, early picture-writing and public inscriptions to paper and printing technologies in China and Europe. Key milestones include the Siloam Inscription (c.700 BCE), early Chinese printing like the Diamond Sutra (868 CE), Gutenberg's 15th-century press, and William Caxton's 1476 press in England. News formats such as Rome's Acta Diurna and Venice's gazettes led to modern newspapers. Radio and television later sped up distribution; today the internet and mobile networks dominate while print remains valued for permanence.

Early signals: human communication before writing

Journalism begins with basic human impulses to share news. Long before alphabets, people used visual and sound signals - beacon fires, smoke, drums and horn calls - to warn, inform and coordinate. Those primitive signals are ancestors of modern alarms, sirens and navigational beacons.

Picture-writing and early records

When noise and distance limited oral signals, humans turned to marks and images. Picture-writing used direct visual signs (for example, a sun with rays) that later gained layered meanings. Remnants of that visual logic survive in today's road signs and symbols.

Some of the earliest fixed records that we might call "news" are stone inscriptions. A well-known example is the Siloam Inscription, found in Jerusalem in 1880, which records the completion of an aqueduct and is dated to about 700 BCE.

Paper, printing and the leap in circulation

Paper transformed how messages spread. In China, hand-made paper technologies were refined over centuries; the court official Ts'ai Lun is traditionally credited with an improved papermaking method around 105 CE. Natural analogies - such as wasps chewing wood to form paper-like nests - sometimes appear when writers explain the material process.

Printing multiplied the reach of written news. A Chinese printed Buddhist scripture known as the Diamond Sutra survives from 868 CE, produced by woodblock printing. Movable type appeared in East Asia before it did in Europe, and by the 15th century Johannes Gutenberg introduced movable metal type and a mechanical press in Mainz, which greatly accelerated book and news reproduction in Europe.

Newsletters, gazettes and early public notices

States and civic centers also produced regular public notices. Ancient Rome circulated government bulletins called the Acta Diurna from about 59 BCE. In Renaissance Venice, handwritten and printed notices (notizie scritte) and small printed newsletters evolved into what became called the "gazette" - a name linked to a small Venetian coin, the gazzetta.

In England, William Caxton established a press in 1476 and helped bring printed books and occasional news items to English readers. Early news-books and pamphlets in Europe were often short, ornate and episodic rather than regularly issued newspapers.

From broadcast to digital distribution

In the 20th century, radio and television became dominant for immediate mass transmission. Since the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the internet and mobile networks have emerged as the fastest channels for distributing news. Print retains value for permanence, depth and local public record, but journalism today is a layered system that blends ancient practices of signalling and record-keeping with digital distribution and real-time interaction.