The third mass media was cinema, which came along in the early 1900s, making the turn-of-the-century population the first to live with three sources of mass media. The cinema brought multimedia (audio and video) to the world as well as the first pay-per-view business model. Many thought that the invention of the cinema would cause print and recordings to disappear.
But that didn’t happen. All three media forms grew and thrived.
Scarcely 10 years after cinema came radio, the fourth mass media. Radio brought “streaming” content delivery where a person has to listen live or miss the content. This was also the first media that was broadcast and received simultaneously by all listeners. Everyone who tuned in heard exactly the same thing at exactly the same time. Families gathered around the radio to listen together to the news, stories, and music. You begin to see how quickly new mass media comes into people’s lives, especially since the children of this time period are now in their 90s or have already passed on.
These folks have seen the greatest changes in technology of any generation so far.
