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32 | Digital Media and Storytelling in Higher Education the delivery of private letters, books and newspapers, telecommunications services such as the telegraph and later telephony were added to the postal services (Barbier & Berjho Lavenir, 1996). The time required for long-distance interpersonal messaging was drastically reduced; the telegram was a written, essential narrative, while the telephone conversation was a simultaneous oral dialogue over a network. 3.1 Mass Media Communication in the 20" Century The new storytelling inventions of the turn of the century were the motion picture and the radio. The radio continued the mass communication conventions of periodicals, presenting breaking news in a narrative framework and, like newspapers, publishing narratives (such as radio plays) in a serial format. In addition to fiction feature films and documentaries, movie theaters also showed film newsreels with subtitles and later with talking features covering political and sporting events, social rituals, accidents, crime, and natural disasters. Over the course of a few decades, radio and television sets became part of family rituals with their continuous broadcasts. In Europe, in the second half of the 20" century, public, state-owned broadcasting channels swore an oath to provide credible news and high culture (e.g., theater productions and political debates), while commercial broadcasters, financed by advertising revenue, broadcasted popular genres (e.g., shows, soap operas, and quizzes). Until the 1980s, European television had the functions of informing and entertaining the viewers. This dual funding division has become less prevalent since the turn of the millennium, with an increasing merging of television genres and the emergence of thematic channels specializing in different storytelling conventions (Barbier & Berjho Lavenir, 1996). Narratives transmitted through technical media have an impact on sociopolitical processes, as the speed of access to information leads to more knowledge and thus to political and economic advantage. The narratives of the daily press can be used to manipulate public opinion; in particular, the motion picture and later the sound film have been powerful storytelling tools which have been used by a number of totalitarian regimes in the 20" century to achieve their propaganda goals. The illusion of reality is reinforced if the visual, audio or audiovisual narrative is determined for documentation. The simultaneous live broadcast and the spontaneous effect of the hand-held camera reinforce the authenticity of the narrative for the viewer. Television's live narratives create a sense in the viewer of experiencing taking part in a live event. A defining common experience for viewers was the sensation of the first moon landing in 1969, or the tragedy of the Challenger spacecraft in 1986, or the live broadcast of the execution of the Romanian dictator Ceausescu on Christmas 1989.
