Revolutions in Communication

3 credits · Undergraduate

(3 hrs Lecture) This course provides students with an historical overview of communication, focusing particularly on those periods in which human relations were dramatically influenced by a shift from one communicative medium to another. After briefly considering the early use of pictorial symbols, the emergence of language, and the development of writing, the course examines some of the profound social changes effected in the western world by the fifteenth century invention of the printing press. Finally, we focus on the revolutionary impact of twentieth century communicative technologies: radio, telephone and then the computer and the Internet, the effects of which are so wide-ranging that we have only begun to assess them. Requisite Courses: Any section of Academic Writing or exemption from the writing requirement and completion of 24 credit hours [prerequisite(s)].