1940s - Early 1950s: First Generation Computers Probably the most important contributor concerning the theoretical basis for the digital computers that were developed in the 1940s was Alan Turing, an English mathematician and logician. In 1936 he created the Turing machine, which was originally conceived as a mathematical tool that could infallibly recognize undecidable propositions. Although he instead proved that there cannot exist any universal method of determination, Turing's machine represented an idealized mathematical model that reduced the logical structure of any computing device to its essentials. His basic scheme of an input/output device, memory, and central processing unit became the basis for all subsequent digital computers. The onset of the Second World War led to an increased funding for computer projects, which hastened technical progress, as governments sought to develop computers to exploit their potential strategic importance. By 1941 the German engineer Konrad Zuse had developed a computer, the Z3, to design airplanes and missiles. Two years later the British completed a secret code-breaking computer called Colossus to decode German messages and by 1944 the Harvard engineer Howard H. Aiken had produced an all-electronic calculator, whose purpose was to create ballistic charts for the U.S. Navy. Also spurred by the war the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), a general-purpose computer, was produced by a partnership between the U.S. government and the University of Pennsylvania (1943). Consisting of 18.000 vacuum tubes, 70.000 resistors and 5 million soldered joints, the computer was such a massive piece of machinery (floor space: 1,000 square feet) that it consumed 160 kilowatts of electrical power, enough energy to dim lights in an entire section of a bigger town. Concepts in computer design that remained central to computer engineering for the next 40 years were developed by the Hungarian-American mathematician John von Neumann in the mid-1940s. By 1945 he created the Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (EDVAC) with a memory to hold both a stored program as well as data. The key element of the Neumann architecture was the central processing unit (CPU), which allowed all computer functions to be coordinated through a single source. One of the first commercially available computers to take advantage of the development of the CPU was the UNIVAC I (1951). Both the U.S. Census bureau and General Electric owned UNIVACs (Universal Automatic Computer). Characteristic for first generation computers was the fact, that instructions were made-to-order for the specific task for which the computer was to be used. Each computer had a different binary-coded program called a machine language that told it how to operate. Therefore computers were difficult to program and limited in versatility and speed. Another feature of early computers was that they used vacuum tubes and magnetic drums for storage.

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Credibility The magic word is credibility. NATO took away part of its credibility by extending more and more the definition of military facilities, which where to be destroyed in order to end the Serb power. Disinformation can mean leaving out important informations. Telling lies is not the only method of disinformation. The not telling also creates thoughts and delegates them into certain directions, whereas other models of thinking are left out. Like this, the deaths on the own side are adjusted downwards whereas the victims of the enemy are counted proudly - as long as they are not civilians. The post-Gulf War period demonstrated how the population reacts if the number of innocent victims is much higher than expected. It was the fact of those numbers that provoked the biggest part of the post-war critique. The media in democratic states tend to criticize this, which does not mean that they always want to be free of governmental influence. They can choose to help the government in a single case by not writing anything against it or by writing pro-government stories. At the same time every democracy has undemocratic parts in it - which is already part of democracy itself. There are situations when a democratic government may find it essential to put pressure on the media to inform the population in a certain way; and also censorship is nothing that can only be connected to dictatorship; just think of the Falkland War, the Gulf-War or the Kosovo-War.

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Bertelsmann The firm began in Germany in 1835, when Carl Bertelsmann founded a religious print shop and publishing establishment in the Westphalian town of Gütersloh. The house remained family-owned and grew steadily for the next century, gradually adding literature, popular fiction, and theology to its title list. Bertelsmann was shut down by the Nazis in 1943, and its physical plant was virtually destroyed by Allied bombing in 1945. The quick growth of the Bertelsmann empire after World War II was fueled by the establishment of global networks of book clubs (from 1950) and music circles (1958). By 1998 Bertelsmann AG comprised more than 300 companies concentrated on various aspects of media. During fiscal year 1997-98, Bertelsmann earned more than US$15 billion in revenue and employed 58.000 people, of whom 24.000 worked in Germany.

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Royal Dutch/Shell Group One of the world's largest corporate entities in sales, consisting of companies in more than 100 countries, whose shares are owned by NV Koninklijke Nederlandsche Petroleum Maatschappij (Royal Dutch Petroleum Company Ltd.) of The Hague and by the "Shell" Transport and Trading Company, PLC, of London. Below these two parent companies are two holding companies, Shell Petroleum NV and the Shell Petroleum Company Limited, whose shares are owned 60 percent by Royal Dutch and 40 percent by "Shell" Transport and Trading. The holding companies, in turn, hold shares in and administer the subsidiary service companies and operating companies around the world, which engage in oil, petrochemical, and associated industries, from research and exploration to production and marketing. Several companies also deal in metals, nuclear energy, solar energy, coal, and consumer products.

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