HU Credits: 2

Degree/Cycle: 1st degree (Bachelor)

Responsible Department: Communication & Journalism

Semester: 1st Semester

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: amit pinchevski

Coordinator Email: amitpi@mscc.huji.ac.il

Coordinator Office Hours: Tue 16-17

Teaching Staff:
Prof Amit Pinchevski

Course/Module description:
A survey of selected topics in the history of communication media from antiquity to the present.

Course/Module aims:
These topics will be studied on two levels: first, the technical -- from the development of writing, through media of dissemination, reproduction and broadcasting such as print, telegraph, radio, TV and computers--focusing on the social, political, cultural and economic contexts of their development. On the second level, we will investigate the interrelations between the technology and its environment, focusing on how they mutually affect each other. Among the issues: speech and writing; literacy and epistemology; media of storage, processing and transmission; mass society, urbanization and industrialization; conceptions of time and space; gender and class conflicts; private and public spheres; community and participation; technology and embodiment; popular culture; analog and digital media; information society and new media

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
1. Identify key points in the history of communication media
2. Remember important terms and dates in that history.
3. Recognize key motives, as defined in class, and employ them to analyze media technologies.
4. Conduct comparative discussion between technologies using these key motives.

Attendance requirements(%):
80%

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: lecture

Course/Module Content:
שיעור 1 -- מבוא
● מרשל מקלוהן, להבין את המדיה (תל אביב: בבל, 2002), עמ' 9-30.

● Donald MacKenzie and Judy Wajcman, "Introductory Essay," in D. MacKenzie and J. Wajcman eds., The Social Shaping of Technology (Philadelphia: Open Univ. Press, 1999), pp. 3-27.


שיעור 2 – דיבור וכתיבה
● Harold A. Innis, "Media in Ancient Empires," in D. Crowley and P. Hayer eds., Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society (New York: Pearson, 2011), pp. 29-37.
● Eric A. Havelock, “The Coming of Literate Communication to Western Culture,” Journal of Communication Vol. 30 No. 1 (1980): 90-98.


שיעור 3 – דפוס: ערש המודרניות
● Elizabeth Eisenstein, “Aspects of Printing Revolution,” in Communication in History, pp. 78-86.

● בנדיקט אנדרסון, קהיליות מדומיינות (תל אביב: אוניברסיטה פתוחה, 1999) , עמ' 39-79.


שיעור 4 – תחבורה, חשמל ועיור
● Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century (Berkeley: U of California Press), pp. 41-50.

● Carolyn Marvin, "Dazzling the Multitude: Imagining the Electric Light as a Communications Medium," in J. J. Corn ed., Imagining Tomorrow: History, Technology and the American Future (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986), pp. 202-217.


שיעור 5 – העיתון והעיר הגדולה
● Michael Schudson, Discovering the News (New York: Basic Books, 1978), pp. 12-31.

● Donald K. Brazeal “Precursor to Modern Media Hype: The 1830s Penny Press,” The Journal of American Culture Vol. 24 No. 4 (2005): 405-414.


שיעור 6 – טלגרף: מסרים ללא שליחים
● James Carey, “Technology and Ideology: The Case of the Telegraph,” in Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society, Revised Edition (New York: Routledge, 2009), pp. 155-176.

● Menahem Blondheim, “When Bad Things Happen to Good Technologies: Three Phases in the Diffusion and Perception of American Telegraphy,” in Y. Ezrahi et al eds., Technology, Pessimism and Postmodernism (Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press, 1995), pp. 77-92.


שיעור 7 – צילום: העולם בעין העדשה
● Andre Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” Film Quarterly Vol. 13 No. 4 (1960): 4-9.

● סוזן סונטאג, הצילום כראי התקופה (תל אביב: עם עובד, 1979), עמ' 7-30.


שיעור 8 – טלפון ופונוגרף: קול ללא גוף
● Michèle Martin, "Hello, Central?" Gender, Technology and Culture in the Formation of Telephone Systems (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1991), pp. 50-67.

● Eric Rothenbuhler and John Durham Peters, “Defining Phonography: An Experiment in Theory,” The Musical Quarterly Vol. 81 No.2 (1997): 242-264.

● Thomas Alva Edison, “Phonograph and its Future,” available online:
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/sgml/moa-idx?notisid&eq;abq7578-0126-62


שיעור 9 – קולנוע: בידור להמונים
● Robert Sklar, Movie-Made America (New York: Random House, 1975), pp. 122-140.

● Tom Gunning, “The Cinema of Attraction: Early Film, its Spectator and the Avant-Garde,” in R. Stam and T. Miller, eds. Film and Theory: An Anthology (London: Blackwell, 2000), pp. 229-235.


שיעור 10 – ימי הרדיו
● Daniel Czitrom, Media and the American Mind: From Morse to McLuhan (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1982), pp. 60-79.

● Susan Douglas, “Broadcasting Begins” in Communication in History, pp. 232-240.


שיעור 11 – טלוויזיה: חלון אל העולם
● Raymond Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form (New York: Schocken Book, 1974), pp. 1-25.

● Willian Boddy, “The Amateur, the Housewife, and the Salesroom Floor: Promoting Postwar US Television,” International Journal of Cultural Studies Vol. 1. No. 1 (1998): 129-142.


שיעור 12 – מחשב ואינטרנט: מה חדש במדיה החדשים

● Paul Ceruzzi, “An Unforeseen Revolution: Computers and Expectations, 1935-1985” in Imagining Tomorrow, 189-201.

● Tom Streeter, "Internet," Culturally Digital: available online
http://culturedigitally.org/2014/09/internet-draft-digitalkeywords/

Required Reading:
as above

Additional Reading Material:
none

Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 100 %
Presentation 0 %
Participation in Tutorials 0 %
Project work 0 %
Assignments 0 %
Reports 0 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %

Additional information:
Responsibilities:
A. Attendance and active participation.
B. reading in preparation to class. Reading material links are found on Moodle.
C. . Final examination. For those submitting 3 reading reports: Exam 90% of final grade, reports 10% (upon submission of all three based on pass/fail mark). For those not submitting reports, final exam 100% of final grade.