BBC Ceefax

Conveying information through public news sources engages a large audience and is vital to the public sphere. Public news allows individuals to stay informed and develop opinions on what is shared. The development of technology has allowed news to spread more quickly as individuals can access various platforms to remain engaged with current events. Oftentimes, technology is influenced by the traditions and material that came before it and mimics accepted formats in order to more seamlessly transition into popular use. 

Using the technology of the television, the BBC was able to develop Ceefax, a digital text-based information service that allowed users to interact with their television to stay up to date with the news. Each page through Ceefax illustrated the same information a traditional newspaper would while being projected directly into the home of the viewer. A remote was used to navigate to various indexes that would provide lists of pages that housed articles and data. Users could explore information that would be updated directly without needing to wait for a print newspaper. The typography of Ceefax was entirely digital and designed to be plain, sans-serif, and readable on a screen with limited resolution. Ceefax utilized relatively new technology to allow users to stay up to date with important information in the public sphere in an innovative way that still paid respect to traditional forms of text-based communication.