Perspectives on Human Communication – 2005

Wednesday 1/12/2005

Historical Framework

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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