Woody Balut
Media Literacy
Rob Larson
February 9, 2011
Media Timeline and Super Bowl Commercial Connections
The history of media can be traced back many thousands of years, and I have learned in class thanks to my classmates that you can relate almost any invention, no matter how old, to the history of media. However, when relating these inventions to the thirty second commercials of The Super Bowl that are worth three million dollars, it is a little bit more difficult. However, after a further look into these two topics there are many comparable aspects.
There is a lot more than meets the eye when talking about super bowl commercials. Companies spend numerous amounts of dollars trying to convince people to buy their product, or join their website, or whatever it may be. There are many different things that go into making a commercial, one specific thing that many commercials have is music. Now looking at our class’ timeline our earliest invention that we noted is a flute made in 33,000 BCE. Now obviously it is not certain for a fact that we know it was made in 33,000 BCE, it is obvious that this instrument was made many thousands of years ago. Now relating this ancient instrument to commercials during the Super Bowl, there are many things that you can talk about. One of my favorite commercials in the Super Bowl was the Chrysler 200 commercial that included Eminem in the commercial, and also one of Eminem’s hit singles “Lose Yourself.” Basically, this whole commercial was based off Eminem and his music, and the fact that he was from Detroit. It’s interesting to see that what was first created sometime around 33,000 BCE has evolved into such an important part of our culture today. It is a key element in some of the most watched 30 seconds on TV in our world.
Paved roads were first created in India sometime around 4,000 BCE. Now it may seem that the inventions of paved roads has no relevance at all to The Super Bowl commercials. However, there are some things that correlate between the two. When looking at just the top ten commercials from The Super Bowl, u can make connections between four out of the ten to the invention of paved roads. The number one, five, and ten most liked commercials from The Super Bowl are car commercials. After knowing this, one can make the obvious connection because what does a car drive on.. PAVED ROADS! It’s as simple as that. Now getting more specific with vehicles, you have tires. The number two most liked commercial from The Super Bowl is a Bridgestone Tire commercial, and again obviously without paved roads tires would be much less likely to be “Super Bowl commercial worthy” in today’s world.
In 1837 the first ever comic book was created in Switzerland by Rudolphe Topffer. It was titled “The adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck.” Now there obviously was not any commercials for this magazine being turned into a movie, however without this first comic the world of comic book would have never evolved to what we have today. Some of the more known superheroes first created in comic books are Superman Spider-Man, and one featured in a Super Bowl commercial named Captain-America. There is a Captain America movie that is coming out this July. So starting in 1837, evolving into more advanced comic books, and now one of those known superheroes has his there own movie that is important enough to get shown in a commercial during The Super Bowl. It is interesting to see how far we have advanced of these peoples’ first creations, and how important these advanced forms of media are in our culture today.
The last piece of our class’ timeline that is comparable to The Super Bowl commercials is the telegraph, which was invented in 1835. However, I feel this invention can be compared to all The Super Bowl commercials, and the idea of the Super Bowl commercials in general. Just to be able to see the advances which have been made in our world since this first telegraph was invented is amazing. It’s crazy that at one point in time a phone was unheard of, people had to communicate using dots and spaces only capable of writing ten words per minute. Now we have commercials advertising a new Iphone that can video chat in the palm of your hand. CRAZY!
At first glance the thirty seconds of greatness the world calls Super Bowl commercials and the random inventions that our class likes to call a history of media timeline may not look like they correlate, but after taking a closer look it is obvious that they are alike in more ways that one!
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