I am very much looking forward to meeting you on the 30th. Until then, we’ll be doing some preparation and communicating through this website. Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with it. Take a look at the schedule/syllabus, and at the modules.
From now until the 30th, we’ll be working through the readings and questions as listed below. After that, we’ll work through one module each day.
As you’ll see, before we meet, we’ll be doing some reading and a little writing to start thinking about media and the role that they have in your every day life. The reading will provide a broad overview of the material we will go back and cover in more detail during our two weeks in class. In other words, this reading will cover a period from roughly 1900 until now and give you a few conceptual tools to think about, and then in class we’ll go back and study different forms of media in more depth.
I’ll be checking in and responding to the posts. Please don’t hesitate to write me privately alejandra.bronfman@ubc.ca or post if you have any questions at all.
by May 18: Read Marshall Poe, History of Communications, Intro (selections)
In “Student blogs #1” post a one-paragraph answer to the following questions:
Do you think that “media attributes” are a useful way of thinking about media? Which of those media attributes is most important to you in your everyday life?
by May 23: A History of Communications, Chapter 4, Homo Videns: Humanity in the Age of Audio Visual Media (selections)
In “Student blogs #2” post a one paragraph answer to the following questions:
What is the author’s explanation for how audiovisual media came into existence? Is this persuasive to you? What is one thing that he argues that audiovisual media “does’? Is there a way to prove his claims?
by May 28: Read A History of Communications, Chapter 5, Homo Somnians: Humanity in the Age of the Internet
In student blogs #3 post a one paragraph answer to the following questions:
What, according to the author, is really new about the internet? What isn’t so new? Has anything changed since the publication of this book, in 2011?
and
by May 30
What is your media world filled with today? What was it like ten years ago, in your experience? What has changed?
As part of this assignment, you may want to make a media journal. Over the course of a single day, make a quick note every time you use some form of media.
This can be just a couple of paragraphs, and doesn’t need to be formally written. I’ll use it mainly as a way to get to know you. Please be prepared to hand these in at our first meeting.
