Course Description


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LIS 9101 (Fall 2010)  The Shaping of News and Information Through Technology

Instructor: D. Spencer

Relationship to the Goals and Objectives of the MLIS Program

Students who complete this course will be able to:

  1. enrich the knowledge base of library and information science by drawing upon the insights, methodologies and findings of related disciplines;
  2. respond to change in a spirit of intellectual inquiry, forming sound opinions based on critical analysis of valid and reliable data.

Goals and Objectives of the MLIS Program

Course Description
Canadian communications theorist Harold Innis contended that technology influences and shapes methods by which we interact. It also influences social, political and economic formations. This course will examine major communications theories as well as case studies from the perspective of emerging technologies from antiquity to modernity. The perspective will be historical.

(15) (Cross-listed with JOU 9729)

Course Objectives
  1. To introduce students to the history and impact of information technologies from ancient to modern times.
  2. To include students in the field of scholarly research and presentation in media and communications history.
  3. To increase awareness and use of the existing body of literature, both in primary and secondary sources, in the field of media and communications history.

Sample Content (for information only)

Week 1 Introduction and Administration

Week 2 A Cultural Approach to Communication

Week 3 Writing: The first Revolution

Week 4 Discussions on Time

Week 5 Printing: The Second Revolution

Week 6 Industrialism and Cultural Values

Week 7 Mass Media: The Third Revolution

Week 8 Technology and Ideology: The Case of the Telegraph

Week 9 The Mythos of the Electronic Revolution

Week 10 Understanding the Technology of Modern Media

Week 11 Entertainment: The Fourth Revolution

Week 12 The Toolshed Home: The Fifth Revolution

Week 13 The Highway: The Sixth Revolution, in A History of Mass Communications, pp. 189-238

Week 14 The End of News

Week 15 Mass Media Audiences in a Changing Media Environment



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