RTF309/Com309 - Spring 1997
"Communication Technology & Society"
Willard Uncapher, Instructor
Kyle Nicholas, TA

Overheads

• The Six-Fold Analytic- My rules of thumb about the important questions to ask of new communication technologies.
• Technological Determinism- A classic concept people in this class should seek to learn or remember.
• Beliefs about Technicalogical Progress- A bit better... or more of the same?

• Eras of Media History- Remember, change doesn't occur everywhere at the same rate.
• History as a Story- Telling stories about and with the past

• Oral Era- Changing how society is organized, and how we think?
• Orality as a Technology- who will teach you, how best to use it?
• (Hand) Writing as a Technology- Business keeps innovating with this fringe invention
• Medieval 1 - 1. An oral/writing hybrid era- what is different about it?
• Medieval 2 & 3 - 2. Thinking about the local and global during the Afro-Eurasian medieval era. 3. Speculations about resemblance to era of cyberspace.
• (Bards & Scribal Culture... and Communication Technology) - Extra. We never got to these 2 overheads, but they may prove informative)
• Graphics included: Pan- 'Afro-Eurasian' Trade Routes of 13th Century; spread of Plague from China/East Asia to Europe/Egypt- impact within 3 years on one another; High Gothic Cathedral; Painting by Jan Van Eyck, "Madonna of Chancellor Rolin" (1430s).

• Printing 1- What was so new - Printing as an Technical Invention
• Printing 2- What was so revolutionary- Printing as part of a Communications Revolution
• Printing Revolutions 1 & 2 - Printing as part of a Social and Cultural Revolution
• Mail, Newspapers, and new Audience- Demands for up to date information, and a new way to subsidize distribution

• Telegraph (1&2)- the first phase of the electronic revolution
• Photography (1&2)- spawned near newspapers, photography leads to changing dimensions of public and private, the heroic and the reality, and leads to 'moving prictures
• Early Radio - Extending the telegraph, but with unexpected consequences!
• Radio as a Communication Technology - The penny press revolution comes to the broadcast waves!

Policy Frameworks I (the classic system)

• Policy Goals- remember, they may be in conflict with another
• The 3 Basic Regulatory models... and a hybrid (1,2,3)
• Regulators- who sets up the rules

The Importance of Switches and the Digital- Telephone

• Rise of the Telephone Industry- From "Bell's Plaything" to monopoly to breakup.
• Digital / Analog - More fundamental categories than many realize.
• There were also graphic overheads to illustrate such things as the discrete sampling of the continuous wave.
• Packet (Digital) Switching- What is it?
• Reasons for Packet Switching- Capacity and Survivability
• Results of Packet (Digital) Switching- An Intelligent Network with Bypass

The Digital Era- New Pathways and Ways to Integrate them

• New Transmission Pathways- Alternatives provide new access and bypass
• Rise of the Computer Industry- Switches become more and more intelligent
• Information Age Terms- What is it? What is the relation of 'geodesics' and the collapse of traditional 'hierarchy'
• For those who want some extra reading and a summary of these points, consider this paper under review at the The Information Society: An International Journal.
• Computer Network History- As the computers emerged, they began to be connected. Additional material from reading on Internet.
• Proto, Counter, and Mainstream- Not all the people doing the connecting were from the military of the telephone company
• Deregulation- when and where does regulation help or hurt?
• (Communications Act of 1996 Reading)- Supplement- what are some of the key issues?

• The Information Age? What is Information and why is it valuable?
• Key Issues in Information Ownership- You will be information producers
• The Intellectual Property System- Copyright, Patent, Trade Mark, Trade Secret
• Information and Business- the 'external side' - markets
• Two Information Economies?
• Information and Business I & II- the 'internal side' - management

• Privacy and Access- Who owns information about you?
• Privacy and Access 2- Controlling information, and losing it.
• Cyber-law- What will the ruling metaphor be? While we only really used the metaphors section of this overhead, we did cover the topics here in class and readings.
• Enforcers- The problem of enforcement

• Libraries and the Public Access to Information- If you want libraries then you'll have to make an argument how and why to preserve them
• The Electronic Library- What are the benefits and drawbacks
• Education- Enchanced by new communication & info technology?
• Computer Assisted Instruction and Distance Education- extending reach, but to enhance centralization or decentralization?
• Political Process and New Technology- Do you know what you are voting on? Will it enhance access and organization to and by politicians?

• Interface Design- Interface is a key to 'filtering' (selecting, organizing) where agents meet agents. With new sensorial design, there is a need for 'traditional artists' among the cyberartists.

• Examples- Increasing World Wide Production and Distribution
• Cultural Imperialism Thesis- Is production and distribution becoming more centralized?
• Global Cultural Flows- Disjunctive global movements of people, finance, media, technology, and shared goals... and a rethinking of the meaning of the nation-state?

• Social Groups and Identity- how are information technologies changing access, boundaries, and their identity?
• Personal Identity- how might technology be changing who you are or how you think?

• Historical Overview 2- Another time line of communication tech. history