| This course will have two primary focuses. Firstly, we will conduct a historical overview of various applied arts which are connected with a communication process. In the second part of the semester we will analyse the main theories of mass communication.
The first part provides a masterful overview of communication media with social and cultural contexts in which they emerged and evolved over time. We will retrace its complex evolution and multiple paths of development, while exploring the interrelations between communication media and other aspects of social and cultural life.
The definition of mass media that will be adopted is: any form of communication starting from a single encoder that reaches a very large number of people simultaneously, that ends with a single interface; some examples are newspapers, radio, television, computers, popular books and periodicals. Other media that will be taken into consideration are literacy (the written word), printing (typography and mass literacy) as well as photography.
We will study the history and the impact of the different means of communication in the West ranging from the invention of printing to the rise of the Internet.
. Other elements include the continuing importance of oral and manuscript communication, the rise of print, the relationship between physical transportation and social communication, in addition to the development of electronic media.
The definition of mass media that will be adopted is: any form of communication starting from a single encoder that reaches a very large number of people simultaneously, that ends with a single interface; some examples are newspapers, radio, television, computers, popular books and periodicals. Other media that will be taken into consideration are literacy (the written word), printing (typography and mass literacy) as well as photography.
We will study the history and the impact of the different means of communication in the West ranging from the invention of printing to the rise of the Internet. Other elements include the continuing importance of oral and manuscript communication, the rise of print, the relationship between physical transportation and social communication, in addition to the development of electronic media.
BASIC CONCEPTS
Definition of mass media
“any form of communication starting from a single encoder that reaches a very large number of people simultaneously, that ends with a single interface; some examples are newspapers, radio,television, computers, popular books and periodicals”
2 revolutions
• print
• Tv
Rhetoric
• The art of written and oral communication
• + persuasion
Public opinion
Newspapers created a national consciousness and a public of readers (late 18th c.)
Propaganda
• Promotes a political ideal
• Imp. of means of communication
Extension of the concept of mean of communication
• 1) Levi-Strauss - exchange of goods
• 2) Luhmann – power, money, lov
Media
A system in perpetual change, in which different elements play greater or smaller roles
Themes that we will privilege:
• Public sphere
• Supply and diffusion of informations
• Rise of mediated entertainment
Innis
“Each medium of communication tends to create a dangerous monopoly of knowledge”
Mc Luhan
“The medium is the
message”
History of communication
• Oral, visual
• Less important: written (1000- “the rise of written culture”)
• Printing
• Electrical communication-a sense of imminent and immediate change
• Broadcasting era
• Internet
No single theory provides a complete guide to the contemporary realm of the system of communication, where relationships, individual and social, are in continuous flux
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