The Umbrella Perspective on Communication Technology is designed so that all areas of the umbrella can be examined in a way to help gain an understanding of a technology. To go along with all the levels of the technology there is an extra level of complexity that can be added to each area on the umbrella.
These factors are enabling, limiting, motivating and inhibiting.
Enabling factors “are those that make an application possible. An example of this is “the fact that the coaxial cable used to deliver traditional cable television can carry dozens of channels.” This factor reaches to the hardware level of the technology.

In the late 20th Century, mass media could be classified into eight mass media industries: books, newspapers, magazines, recordings, radio, movies, television and the internet. With the explosion of digital communication technology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the question of what forms of media should be classified as "mass media" has become more prominent. For example, it is controversial whether to include cell phones, video games and computer games in the definition.

1. Print (books, pamphlets, newspapers, magazines, etc.) from the late 15th century
2. Recordings (gramophone records, magnetic tapes, cassettes, cartridges, CDs, DVDs) from the late 19th century
3. Cinema from about 1900
4. Radio from about 1910
5. Television from about 1950
6. Internet from about 1990
7. Mobile phones from about 2000

The Chapter is about the different technologies (print media, telephone, radio, TV, computers and video games) at that period of time.