Revolutions in

Communication
Media History from
Gutenberg
to the Digital Age

Slides based on the Bloomsbury book by Bill Kovarik

Orientation
Welcome from the author
 Bill Kovarik, PhD
 Professor @ Radford
University, a public college
in Virginia, USA

 Media history is fun

 Meet amazing people
 Learn about great ideas
 Find lots of history still
unexplored

 Gort says hello too (from the

movie “Day the Earth Stood
Still.”)
Course Orientation
http://www.revolutionsincommunication.com

Textbook:

1st edition – 2011 2nd edition – 2016

Our textbook:
Revolutions in Communication
 International scope
 Technology framework
 Comprehensive (all disciplines)
◦ Printing (books, papers, magazines)
◦ Images (photo, cinema, pr, advertising)
◦ Electronics (radio, tv)
◦ Digital (computers, networks)
 Written for all Comm students
 Low cost to encourage student use
This course …
 Is organized through the Web site:
◦ revolutionsincommunication.com

The web site has …
 Slide shows & flash cards
 Reading & viewing assignments
 Updates for each chapter
For mass communication,
It is the best of times,
it is the worst of times…

It is the age of information,

it is the era of ignorance …
It is the age of devolution
It is the age of revolution
We all need to understand
 How we got to this point
 Who got us here
 Why it happened
 And what may be next
 And what we could do about that
We’ll study four revolutions
 Printing
◦ Moveable type – 1455
 Associated with religious revolution 1500s – 1700s
◦ Industrial scale printing
 Associated with political revolutions 1700s – now
 Imaging
◦ Engraving, photography and cinema
◦ Advertising and PR as image making
 Both associated with cultural revolutions
 Electronic – radio, TV, satellites
 Associated with nationalistic revolutions
 Digital – computers, networks
 Associated with emerging global culture
We’ll meet some of the world’s
most interesting people
As a student you will …
 Read & listen & participate
 Ask lots of questions
 Watch some classic cinema
 Listen to programs from the Golden
Age of Radio
 Form research groups to answer
historical questions
Questions:

Where do you get your basic

information?

Do you listen to radio or watch TV

the same way your parents did?
Do we live in an Information
Age?

When did it start?

How is it different from living in
the industrial age?
What are the top five
technologies over the past
1,000 years?
Do technologies have ethical
implications?
What are some of the
concerns about the impact of
mass media worldwide?
Are technologies mostly on
their own course, or are they
mostly shaped for human
needs?
Do we get to choose our
technologies? Should we?
Why were these Bibles
smuggled in barrels?
Next: Chapter 0.1b
Introduction to history