Throughout the history of mass communication, many inventions seem to have an important role, but none is more important than the microphone. Imagine a single entertainer standing on stage in a packed Elliot Hall of Music trying to talk to the entire crowd without a microphone: impossible! The microphone seems to be the ultimate mass communication device; simply allowing an individual to communicate to a mass. It can control the level of sound by conducting the original sound waves to an electrical current, then back to sound waves through speakers. Emile Berliner first invented the microphone in 1876 to be used in the newly invented telephone. The Bell Telephone Company bought his patent for a mere $50,000. In 1964, at Bell Labs, James West created the modern version of the microphone, which was smaller and more precise. Today, in the “boom”-ing industry of microphones over one billion are produced each year!
