perspectives on human communication – 2005 wednesday 1/12/2005 historical framework...
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Perspectives on Human Communication – 2005
Wednesday 1/12/2005
Historical Framework
willardu@colorado.edu
Class Information Site
Go to: These are sites are now operational:
http://tac.colorado.edu/comm1210Willard [to become main site]http://www.well.com/user/willard/comm1210.htm [only a backup]
willardu@colorado.edu or willard@well.com
Wait List? Keep coming. Remember to sign attendance list.
Why some media history?
Won’t get much of it in many communication courses
Need to connect to larger context of communication and our humanity.
Not clear in Trenholm (when was (moveable type) Printing invented?)
So: We cover historical issues of 1. determinism; 2. asking about consequences; 3. quick periodic overview: 1. oral, 2. written, 3.
typographic, 4a electronic 1, & 4b electronic 2
Media History
Essentialism – is a medium a ‘thing’ ; do media have the same consequences? –writing, telephones – “Does TV rot brains?”
Technological Determinism Hard – always the same result
Marshall McLuhan (1960s) – “The Media is the message” and environment; media as extension of senses (“from ear to eye”; brings communication research to public attention, but aphoristic generalizations discredited; brings some discredit to study of media history itself.
Soft – usually the same, varies with culture Cultural Determinism
Hard- ‘categorize the new [medium] in terms of the old [medium]’ Soft- how to read a movie? Learning the movie ‘grammar’
Will the “train” leave the screen? Where did the chickens go? Uncapher - “Resource Theory of Media History”
Media Technologies – Good, Bad, or Neutral? E.g. “Steel Axes for Stone-Age Australians' – Lauriston
Sharp's study of the Yir Yorant who depended on their stone axes. Axes were traded among men and initiates Cultural destruction with the best intentions
E.g. Bombadier snowmobiles among Lapp – Mechanical hunting depletes herds and leads to a
cash economy among nomads E.g. Green Revolution in India –
Rich get richer; who gets the fertilizer
Communication Technology Overview – One perspective: 4 Factors of any media technology – An evolution/revolution tends to change one of these: Replication – how do we make more copies of a
message? Storage – how do we keep a message over time? Transmission – how do we transmit a message from one
person or place to another? Interpretation – How do we make sense of the
message?
Media History Overview
Historical Periods I. Oral (3 million - 3500 bce.) includes dance, etc.- question is how info transmitted and stored; how is culture transmitted & formed II. (Hand) Written a. glyphic, syllabic, etc (3500 bce. - 750 bce. approx.) b. alphabetic (750 bce. - 1450 ce.) III. Typographic (1450 - 1830 ce.) printing press- mass media, newspapers IVa. Electronic I (1830s- 1940s approx.) telegraph, telephone, electric light info become independent of space; short IVb. Electronic II (1945- present) (interactive) computers, multi-media fusions
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