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Digital Distribution

For centuries, the dominant means of delivering the news was via print newspapers, magazines, or newsletters. While radio and then television made serious inroads during the 20th century, the biggest challenge to the dominance of print came at the turn of the 21st century with a widespread move to online distribution. This entry discusses the origins of online distribution, its evolution and growth alongside the development of new technologies, and challenges to online distribution.

Origins

Inspired partly by European experiments with delivering textual information via telephone and television, several U.S. media companies flirted with electronic delivery of information in the late 1970s. These videotex and teletext services sent text and low-definition graphics to subscribers’ television sets. The systems were costly and slow and found little reception ...

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