2016 - Spring

Media Past and Future

Course Number: JOUR-UA 610.001

Day & Time: Tues 12:30-3:00pm

Location: 20 Cooper, room 653

Instructor: Mitchell Stephens

An attempt to better understand and participate in the communications revolution we are undergoing through an investigation of the nature and consequences of previous communications revolutions. Using readings ranging from Plato to Sontag to Kundera, the course will look closely at the history of spoken language, images, writing, printing, photography, film, radio and television. How were they understood? How were they initially used or misused? What were their effects upon social patterns, politics and thought? How did innovations occur? What can that tell us about the potential and potential influence of digital communication? Students will be asked to undertake innovative experiments of their own in forms of new media.