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Perspectives on Human Communication – 2005

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]

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Perspectives on Human Communication – 2005

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  1. Perspectives on Human Communication – 2005 Wednesday 1/12/2005 Historical Framework willardu@colorado.edu

  2. 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.

  3. 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

  4. 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”

  5. 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

  6. 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?

  7. 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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