Your second essay Spring 2019

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Hi everybody

Essay No.2 !         due April 25

Your second essay, is due April 25 - the paper is on the Telegraph, Telephone and the Television.  

Your paper is short history of the social context, and technical development of the 3 inventions, then on your final page, a conclusion of sorts - a statement which considers both the immediate, and also, the long term impact of the inventions on culture and behaviour, and finally, a brief speculative consideration, on our future's, communications technologies.

Remember Innis's notion of "technological determinism", technological cause and effect, reciprocity etc.

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(for total of 5 pages only, 4 pages for the essay, 1 page for the bibliography! ) no exceptions, edit and refine.

Don't ramble or repeat yourself, really look at what you are trying to say, I'ver given you lots of notice, so plan ahead .... reduce rather than obtuse.

see below 3 visual timeline images to assist you in better appreciating the historical context, and parallel developments made during the periods that your essays cover. Research, planning ....

 due April 25

Good luck and save any questions for class 

Quiz no 3 spring 2019

this quiz will be taken May 9


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Mass Media, Mass Culture Quiz No.3 Spring 2019


From our textbook, class lecture notes and your own research


1. Ingenious Inventions, read pages 344, 345 and review pages 292-295

a. The Industrial Revolution - what were the 4 essential technological advances for the Industrial Revolution ? 


TME /8


b. Who were Charles Babbage, and Lady Ada Byron Lovelace ? .. do some research !

What did they do ? What has been their profound, and lasting influence.


TME /7



2. The Shrinking World - aka “ the Global Village ” pages 486, 487 and your own research 


George Stephenson, Isambard Brunel, and Tim Berners Lee invented/developed systems
now central to modern societies. 

What were they, and how are they, in essence, similar ?


TME /10 



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Your first essay Spring (H) 2019

Note that your essay has two major sections.

The FIRST SECTION considers the work and central themes of Harold Innis's lecture series - Empire and Communications. 

a.

What now might seem as common sense, was, when Innis first articulated it - a rather novel or innovative notion. 

Do you agree with his ideas regarding what we described in our in-class discussion, as non-military cultural "invasion" ? 

Explain this notion, and give some examples if you can think of any. 

Remember that Innis maintained that the dominant technology of a civilization is its cause, and shaping force.  

Pinpointing the major technological achievements of a culture - makes it possible to identify what the physical and social pattern of that culture had to be.  

He noted that " this dominant form and all its causal powers are hidden from the attention of people living in that culture".  

He warned of a blindness to the bias or distorting power of the prevailing technology of communication and cautioned, "We are perhaps too much a part of the civilization which followed the printing industry to be able to detect its characteristics." 

This overall phenomenon of technology defining culture, is often referred to as - "Technological Determinism"

b. 

discuss Innis's concept " Monopolies of Knowledge" 

"Monopolies of knowledge had developed and declined partly in relation to the medium of communication on which they were built, and tended to alternate as they emphasized religion, decentralization and time; or force, centralization, and space. "

c.

discuss Innis's concept of Time and Space Bias - ( please no references to Darth Vader :-} )

then ...............

The SECOND SECTION of your essay should examine, analyze and comment upon the now famous concepts/dictums of Marshall McLuhan. 

Specifically  a. Hot and Cool Media 

b. the Medium is the Message 

c. the Global Village 

Do these concepts seem accurate or applicable  ? How are they evidenced today ? Give examples of these theories in practice ? What are the social implications of his theories ?

" McLuhan understood "medium" in a very broad sense. He identified the light bulb as a clear demonstration of the concept of "the medium is the message". A light bulb does not have content in the way that a newspaper has articles or a television has programs, yet it is a medium that has a social effect; that is, a light bulb enables people to create spaces during nighttime that would otherwise be enveloped by darkness. He describes the light bulb as a medium without any content. McLuhan states that "a light bulb creates an environment by its mere presence."

remember 4.5 pages, double spaced and handed in on time ! Don't overwrite ! Quote all your sources !

Good luck !

Quiz 2 Spring 2019

- SAVE ALL QUESTIONS FOR CLASS ONLY !!


- SAVE ALL QUESTIONS FOR CLASS ONLY !!

Quiz 1 Spring 2019 Mass Media, Mass Culture

another time chart