Comparisons were drawn between the development of television in the 20th century and the diffusion of printing in the 15th and 16th centuries. Yet much had happened 【A1】 _____. As was discussed before, it was not 【A2】 _____ the 19 th century that the newspaper became the dominant pre-electronic 【A3】 _____, following in the wake of the pamphlet and the book and in the 【A4】 _____ of the periodical. It was during the same time that the communications revolution 【A5】 _____ up, beginning with transport, the railway; and leading 【A6】 _____ through the telegraph, the telephone, radio and motion pictures 【A7】 _____ the 20 th century world of the motor car and the airplane. Not everyone sees that process in 【A8】 _____ It is important to do so.

It is generally recognized, 【A9】 _____, that the introduction of the computer in the early 20 th century, 【A10】 _____ by the invention of the integrated circuit during the 1960s, radically changed the process, 【A11】 _____ its impact on the media was not immediately 【A12】 _____. As time went by computers became smaller and more powerful, and they became “personal” too, as well as 【A13】 _____, with display becoming sharper and storage 【A14】 _____ increasing. They were thought of like people, 【A15】 _____ generations, with the distance between generations much 【A16】 _____.

It was within the computer age that the term “information society” began to be widely used to describe the 【A17】 _____ within which we now live. The communications revolution has 【A18】 _____ both work and leisure and how we think and feel both place and time, but there have been 【A19】 _____ views about its economic, political, social and cultural implications. “Benefits” have been weighed 【A20】 _____ “harmful” outcomes. And generalizations have proved difficult.