Communication in History's outstanding selection of readings from classic and contemporary sources gives an
extensive overview of the most important ideas in the field.
Encompassing topics as wide-ranging as the role of printing in the rise of the modern state and the role of the
Internet in the Information Age, this anthology reveals how media have been influential both in maintaining social
order and as powerful agents of change. Revised with new readings for the Fourth Edition, Communication in History
continues to be, as one reviewer wrote, "the only text in the sea of History of Mass Communication texts that
introduces students to a more expansive, intellectually enlivening study of the relationship between human history
and communication history."
Features :
Concise but comprehensive chapters vary in style and level, making it easy for instructors to tailor assignments
to their courses.
Readings feature major writers including Innis, Ong, McLuhan, Schudson, Eco, and many others.
Part introductions provide an overview of the concepts and scholars presented in each section.
"Suggestions for Further Reading" section serves as a guide to reading in greater depth.
New To This Edition :
Enriches coverage of digital communication and new media to make the text more up-to-date and a better guide
for assessing contemporary technological change.
Includes entries on television in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, making the television section more historically
complete.
Adds a chapter on radio and race that discusses the controversial depiction of African-Americans on Amos 'n'
Andy, one of the most popular shows of radio's Golden Age.
Includes a discussion of the telegraph that highlights how it transformed media practices.
Provides a new advertising entry that shows more clearly how consumption and mass society develops through
media practices.
Features a new entry on early printing technology in China, increasing the text's coverage of non-Western communications
traditions.
Table of Contents
I. THE MEDIA OF EARLY CIVILIZATION.
1. The Art and Symbols of Ice Age Man, Alexander Marshack.
2. The Evolution of Symbols in Prehistory, Denise Schmandt-Besserat.
3. The New Rosetta Stone, Richard Rudgley.
4. Media in Ancient Empires, Harold Innis.
5. Civilizations without Writing--the Incas and the Quipu, Marcia Ascher and Robert Ascher.
6. The Origins of Writing, Andrew Robinson.
II. THE TRADITION OF WESTERN LITERACY.
7. The Alphabet, Johanna Drucker.
8. The Greek Legacy, Eric Havelock.
9. Writing and the Alphabetic Effect, Robert K. Logan.
10. Orality, Literacy, and Modern Media, Walter Ong.
11. A Medieval Library, Umberto Eco.
12. Communication in the Middle Ages, James Burke.
III. THE PRINT REVOLUTION.
13. Paper and Block Printing--From China to Europe, T. F. Carter.
14. The Invention of Printing, Lewis Mumford.
15. The Rise of the Reading Public, Elizabeth Eisenstein.
16. Early Modern Literacies, Harvey J. Graff.
17. The Trade in News, John B. Thompson.
18. Files, Bureaucrats, and Intellectuals, Robert Darnton.
IV. ELECTRICITY CREATES THE WIRED WORLD.
19. The Optical Telegraph, Daniel Headrick.
20. Telegraphy--The Victorian Internet, Tom Standage.
21. The New Journalism, Michael Schudson.
22. The Telephone Takes Command, Claude S. Fischer.
23. Inventing the Expert, Carolyn Marvin.
24. Time, Space, and the Telegraph, James Carey.
V. IMAGE TECHNOLOGIES AND THE EMERGENCE OF MASS SOCIETY.
25. On Photography, Susan Sontag.
26. Early Photojournalism, Ulrich Keller.
27. Dream Worlds of Consumption, Rosalyn Williams.
28. Early Motion Pictures, Daniel Czitrom.
29. Mass Media and the Star System, Jib Fowles.
30. Advertising and the Idea of Mass Society, Jackson Lears.
VI. RADIO DAYS.
31. Wireless World, Stephen Kern.
32. Early Radio, Susan J. Douglas.
33. Movies Talk, Scott Eyman.
34. The Golden Age of Programming, Christopher Sterling and John M. Kittross.
35. Radio and Race, Gerald Nachman.
36. Understanding Radio, Marshall McLuhan.
VII. TV TIMES.
37. Television Begins, William Boddy.
38. The New Languages, Edmund Carpenter.
39. Making Room for TV, Lynn Spigel.
40. The Sixties Counterculture on TV, Aniko Bodroghkozy.
41. Television Transforms the News, Mitchell Stephens.
42. Two Cultures--Television versus Print, Neil Postman and Camille Paglia.
VIII. NEW MEDIA AND OLD IN THE INFORMATION AGE.
43. The Control Revolution, James Beniger.
44. How Media Became New, Lev Manovich.
45. The Hypermedia Environment, Ronald J. Deibert.
46. Popularizing the Internet, Janet Abbate.
47. From Codex to Homepage, James J. O'Donnell.
48. A World Wide Web, Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin.
