COMMUNICATION

TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY Syllabus, Fall 2012, Oliphant Hall 105 Course site: http://ctsf2012.posterous.com Instructor: Benjamin Peters, PhD Email: ben-peters@utulsa.edu (preferred) Professor site: petersbenjamin.wordpress.com Cell: 347-426-8236 (only if necessary) Office hours: MW 12-1 or by appointment Facebook friends? Sure thing, after you graduate It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. Albert Einstein Course Overview This core course introduces foundational material for the critical study of communication technology and society. The course will examine works by media and communication scholars, theorists, technologists, critics, sociologists, historians, linguistics, psychologists, legal scholars, business leaders, and many others. The course material is roughly organized along a deep human history of technologya history that we will scrutinize carefully. A few foundational questions include, What is a communication technology? How, if at all, do technologies shape history and to what degree, if any, are we part communication technology? Why the preoccupation with communicationand why now? How, if at all, are modern digital technologies essentially different than pre-digital technologieshow are they the same? (Is a number a technology? What about a digit?) What does our imagination of communication reveal about our tools, sense and sensibilities, connections and culture; what does our understanding of our mediated relationships with one another tell us about ourselves? The course has three interlocking goals: 1. To prompt each student to master a basic historical and theoretical understanding of the modern media environment. 2. To prompt each student to read, think, discuss, and write critically on the social impact of technology. 3. To prompt each student to explore, expand, and sharpen the media technology toolboxa toolbox available to them for research, creative play, professional work, social interaction, and other valuable activities. The class schedule is divided accordingly. Every Monday and Wednesday will be devoted to course lectures and discussions that will emphasize the first two goals. Every Friday we will participate in a more hands-on laboratory environment in class pursuant to the third goal. Fair Warning: this course expects a lot. In particular, it will expect you to perform and prepare research fit for mature undergraduates in the field. Success lies in disciplining your thinking, your speech, and your writing. Youll need to write, rethink, rewrite, revise, and repeatand all of your bidding. At the very least, it expects you to take command of sophisticated reading assignments, engage in thoughtful classroom discussion, and excel in the ample written assignments with historical nuance, theoretical sophistication, and a sense of the rhetorical craft.

I do not give grades; you must earn them. A normal distribution of grades will be followed in which C is the average grade, and 95% is the general upper limit on written assignments. A rule of thumb: C papers are hearsay (repeat what you heard somewhere else), B papers are heresay (repeat what you learned in class), and A papers are heresy (you tell me what that means. If I told you and you did it, that wouldnt be heretical, now would it?). Required Readings Course readings have been selected to showcase two recent books, one by James Gleick, the other by Marshall Poe. These two books will be supplemented with a number of short excerpts including articles, news pieces, and online readings we will discover and postover every week. You should order your own copy of the books by Gleick and Poe. They can be found at the University bookstore or at your favorite online book vendor. The other readings will be provided in class or online. Extra credit may also be awarded to those who find and share relevant supplementary reading materials in online and classroom discussion. 1. James Gleick, The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood, 2011. 2. Marshall Poe, A History of Communication: From Speech to the Internet, 2011. Every week you will also take, post online, and archive detailed reading notes on both sets of readings for course credit, as explained below. Additional readings: Given troubled economic times, I have worked hard to keep the readings online and available in class as handouts. However, should you be interested in building your library, please consider compilations of excerpts from classic media and communication studies texts such as these: Paul Heyer, ed. Communication Technologies in History (sixth edition) and John Durham Peters and Peter Simonson, eds., Mass Communication and American Social Thought: Key Texts 1919-1968. A short reading list is attached to further spark explorations. Class Schedule and Reading Assignments Week 1: (August 20, 22, 24) Course Introduction Monday Review syllabus. Wednesday Discuss: C. W. Mills, The Sociological Imagination, On Intellectual Craftsmanship Friday Lab: college student skills Unit 1: Communication Technology in History Week 2: (August 27, 29, 31) Homo loquens and Speech Read: Poe, introduction and chapter 1 (pp. 1-60) Due M: Reading Notes Assignment #1 Due W: Email open assignment proposals F: How to talk

Week 3: (NO CLASS Sept 3, Sept 5, 7) Homo scriptor and Writing Due: Reading Notes #2 Due: Meet and email proposal for final paper topic. Read: Poe, chapter 2 (pp. 61-100) F: How to write Week 4: (September 10, 12, 14) Homo lector and Print Due: Reading Notes #3 Read: Poe, chapter 3 (pp. 101-151) F: How to read Week 5: (September 17, 19, 21) Homo videns and the Audio Visual Department Due: Reading assignment #4 Due (unless approved otherwise): Open Assignment Read: Poe, chapter 4 (pp. 152-201) F: How to watch and listen Week 6: (September 24, 26, 28) Homo somnians and the Internet Due: Reading assignment #5 Read: Poe, chapter 5 and conclusion, 202-276 F: How to live online and off Week 7: (October 1, 3, 5) Mid-term Exam (Unit 1) Due: Reading assignment (exam notes) #6 W: Exam in-class. F: Exam results review. Unit 2: Information, Technology, Society Week 8: (October 8, 10, 12) Information: An Early Theory Due: Reading Notes #7 Read: Gleick, Prologue, chapters 1 and 2 (pp. 3-50) F: Word technologies Week 9: (October 15, 17, 19) Information: History Before World War II Due: Reading Notes #8 Read: Gleick, chapters 5, 7, 8 (pp. 125-167, 204-268) F: Talk technologies Week 10: (October 22, 24, 26) Information: History After World War II Due: Reading Notes #9 Read: Gleick, chapters 12, 13, and choose one: 9, 10, or 11 (pp. 324-372, and one more chapter) F: Eye technologies Week 11: (October 29, 31, NO CLASS November 2) Information: Todays Flood Due: Reading Notes #10 Read: Gleick, chapters 14, 15, epilogue (pp. 324-426)

F: Other technologies Week 12: NO CLASS November 5, 7, 9 (Scheduled Trip) Due: Exam notes #11 On your own: Prepare for exam. Week 13: (November 12, 14, 16) Final Exam. M: Review for exam W: Final exam in class F: Exam results review Week 14: NO CLASS November 19, 21, 23 (Thanksgiving Break) Week 15: (November 26, 28, 30) M: Peer-Review Workshops W: Peer-Review Workshops F: In class party. Due Friday, November 30: Major Paper/Project Assignments and Grading Scale Weekly reading journal........................10 pts: Notes posted before class Midterm exam (unit 1).........................10 pts: Multiple choice and short answer End of term exam (unit 2)....................10 pts: Multiple choice and short answer Classroom participation.......................15 pts: 10 pts in class, 5 pts online Open assignment..................................15 pts: See description below Major paper..........................................40 pts: Eight pages, minimum Weekly Reading Notes Following C. Wright Mills, you are expected to take a journal of notes in conversation with the readings. This can take almost any form, so long as they are relevant. You can critically review the material; post your reading notes; post a YouTube video where the topic at hand is developed; comment on a related news article or serious article online, which is relevant to the material (include the link for others!); write a dialogue between characters in the reading; write a computer program that tests a controversy in class or in the reading; etc., etc. Written notes, which should be 300 words of original discussion at a minimum, must be posted to the course site before the class for which the reading it discusses is assigned. To receive credit, all responses must quote, use, refer, and respond to assigned reading material. The purpose here is to build conversation among close readers of the material. You have exactly one free response: submitting all ten (10) satisfactory responses will earn eleven (11) points out of ten (10) possible points.

Open Assignment You have the opportunity to craft your own assignment, and to mold the shape of this course. It can be a small group project, an individual project, a course project, a community-based project, or anything else that meets instructor approval. Ill leave this open to your discretion, but it is an opportunity to address the question: What will the future of communication and media work involve? And how can I prepare for it now? If you are totally stumped, which Im sure you wont be, please consider a book review as a conventional option. Under the book review option, you should choose, with instructor approval, a book or significant work relevant to the course and write a two-page book review (about 500 words) embedding that book into a larger scholarly conversation. In addition to posting the finished book review to the course website, each student should also prepare and deliver a short class presentation on the book. Midterm Exam, and End of Term Exam Two in-class exams will test your mastery of basic and foundational concepts, problems, and details covered in the course and all attending materials. It will include multiple choice and short essay questions designed to challenge students to respond to the material in ways that will reward those who engage the course content with genuine and disciplined effort. Major Paper The major paper is the capstone assignment of the course. If you are already thinking about what you want to write on, you are on time. The final paper should be eight (8) or more pages in length (not including bibliography) and approaching publishable undergraduate paper quality. The major paper will examine a specific theme or topic raised in the course or in consultation with the instructor. It should aim to persuade the critical reader of something specific. A satisfactory paper will include two of the following elements: a pressing theme reviewed and refreshed in analysis of multiple course materials, a clear argument backed by significant evidence of scholarly research, and original research using primary materials. A successful paper will combine some portion of all three elements and do so persuasively. Other guidelines: write multiple drafts. Use non-scholarly web resources sparingly. Favor given to topics from a time before you were born, and a double dose for those focusing beyond twentieth-century America. Your paper should be specific in time, place, and topic. Not OK: Entertainment News and Politics; OK: Jon Stewart as a Jester in the High Court of News. Not OK: Social Networking Sites; OK: A Comparative Analysis of Privacy Controls on Facebook and 4Chan. If interested in producing an alternative major project, including play scripts, short films, animation or art projectsall of which are openly welcomed!please do approach the instructor early on in the semester with your interest. All special major project require advanced instructor approval early on in the semester. The major paper or project is due on the last day of class, in class. Assignment Style Guidelines All assignments should be typewritten in plain, proof-read English, in a regular font and size 5

(e.g. Times new roman, 12) and, except for online submissions, submitted double-spaced on standard- sized paper, with pages numbered and 1 inch margins. Assignments without name and date and title may not receive credit. Please follow any formatting style. So long as the whole paper follows a consistent, complete, and clear formatting pattern, it will suffer no style guideline penalty. This includes any footnotes, endnotes, and bibliography. For the nervous, three widely-used style manuals follow: The Chicago Manual of Style. Z253.U69MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. LB2369.G53A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. LB2369.T8 Classroom Participation Thoughtful participation in classroom discussion, especially those based on the assigned readings, will earn full credit. I reserve the right to give surprise (pop) quizzes in class on the assigned reading material and classroom discussion as discretion dictates. Any penalties received will come out of the participation grade. ADA Policy Students with special needs as outlined in the Americans with Disabilities Act: Academic accommodations will be provided when appropriate documentation is presented. Contact the Center for Student Academic Support in Lorton Hall for details. The Center for Student Academic Support will inform the instructor as to what special accommodations must be provided. Student Etiquette Students are expected to be attentive during class and not to disrupt the learning process. Everyone is encouraged to participate in class discussions as directed by the instructor. Students are also encouraged to ask the instructor questions about the course material. Here is a list of activities that can disrupt the learning process: 1. Forgetting to turn-off your cell phone during lecture, quiz, or exam time. 2. Habitual tardiness. 3. Leaving and re-entering the classroom during lecture, quiz, or exam time. 4. Engaging in conversation not relevant to the classroom activities. Exams will have assigned seating as directed by the course instructor. Any refusal to abide by the policies outlined in this document could result in any of the following: no credit for an assignment, a failing grade for the course, or dismissal from the university. Two Unexcused Absences For every unexcused absence more than two, the final grade will be reduced by one grade letter degree. For example, the third unexcused absences will turn a B into a B-; the fourth, C+; the fifth, C; etc. Absences will be considered unexcused unless documented by a religious leader, doctor, mortician, or similar before the absence or, only in the case of genuine emergencies, immediately following the absence. Excused absences for religious holidays should be planned with the instructor during the first two weeks of the course. 6

No Incompletes, No Make-Ups, No Late Policy I will not give incompletes except in the case of a severe personal crisis (a coma qualifies, barely). I do not want to give incompletes; you do not want them. Please plan subsequently. Make-up work will be given only in the case of documented excused absence. The same applies for late work: an on-time, imperfect assignment will fare far better than an improved one after the due date (and grade). An on-time reading response assignments will be posted before that Thursdays class. An on-time paper will be submitted by 11:59 pm of the listed due date. No Plagiarism To plagiarize is to use a source and to not attribute use to it. Do not do it. Plagiarism and academic dishonesty will result in a failing course grade and quite possibly worse. See the University of Tulsa Undergraduate Bulletin for more details. Addendum This syllabus is not a contract. I reserve the right to adjust it in conversation over the semester.

A Few Books in Communication and Media Studies (Dont Stop Here!) Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. Babe, Robert. 2000. Canadian Communication Thought: Ten Foundational Writers. Beniger, James. 1986. The Control Revolution. Benkler, Yochai. (2006) The Wealth of Networks: How Production Networks Transform Markets and Freedom. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Blondheim, Menahem. 1994. News over the Wires: The Telgraph and the Flow of Public Information in America, 1844-1897. Boorstin, Daniel. The Image. Bruns A (2008) Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: From Production to Produsage. New York: Peter Lang. Carey, James. (1989) Communication as Culture. Cmiel, Kenneth. 1996. On Cynicism, Evil, and the Discovery of Communication in the 1940s. Journal of Communication. Carr NG (2008) The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google. Castells, Manuel. The Internet Galaxy Chandler, Inventing the Electronic Century: The Epic Story of the Consumer Electronics and Computer Industries (2001) Chandler, Alfred. 1977. The Visible Hand. Couldry, Nick. 2003. Media Rituals: A Critical Approach. Czitrom, Daniel. Media and the American Mind: From Morse to McLuhan. Darnton, Robert. The Case for Books. (About books online, as well.) The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History. Douglas, Susan. Inventing American Broadcasting. Eco, Umberto. The Name of the Rose. Eisenstein, Elizabeth. (1982) The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. New York. Fischer, Claude. To Dwell among Friends: Personal Networks in Town and City.

Galloway, A. (2006) Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization. MIT Press. Gary, Brett. 1999. The Nervous Liberals: Propaganda Anxieties from World War 1 to the Cold War. Gitlin, Todd. 1978. Media Sociology: The Dominant Paradigm. Theory and Society. Goody, Jack. (1986) The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society. Habermas, Jurgen. [1962] 1989. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Hardt, Hanno. 1992. Critical Communication Stuides: Communication, History and Theory in America. Havelock, Eric. Preface to Plato, or The Literate Revolution in Greece and its Cultural Consequences. Hindman M (2009) The Myth of Digital Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Illouz E (2007) Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism. Malden, MA: Polity Press. Jeanneney, Jean-Noel. Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge (2007) Jensen, Joli. 1990. Redeeming Modernity. Kittler, F. (1997) Literature, Media, Information Systems. London: Routledge. Lasch, Christopher. 1991. The True and Only Heaven: Progress and its Critics Law and Hassard. Actor Network Theory and After Latour, Bruno. Science in Action Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social Marvin, Carolyn. When Old Technologies were New. Marx, Leo. Technology: The Emergence of a Hazardous Concept. McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media. Merton, Robert K. [1946] 2004. Mass Persuasion: The Social Psychology of a War Bond Drive. Moglen, Eblen. Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of Copyright Ong, Walter. 1982. Orality and Literacy. Pool, Ithiel de Sola. The Social Impact of the Telephone. Postman, Niel. Amusing Ourselves to Death. Putnam, Robert. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Rochlin, Networks and the Subversion of Choice. Rogers, Everett. Diffusion of Innovations. Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks, 2004. Schnatz Gossip, Letters, Phones: The Scandal of Female Networks in Literature and Film (2008), Schudson, Michael. (1978) Discovering the News. Schudson, Michael. Advertising: The Uneasy Persuasion. Shirky C (2008) Here Comes Everybody. New York: Penguin Press. Streeter, Thomas (2010). The Net Effect: Romanticism, Capitalism, and the Internet. Surowiecki J (2004) The Wisdom of Crowds. New York: Little, Brown. Terranova T (2004) Network Culture: Politics for the Information Age. Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press. Tilly, Charles. Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons (1984) Turner, F. From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, The Whole Earth Network, andthe Rise of Digital Utopianism. Chicago UP. Weber S (2004) The Success of Open Source. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Webster, Frank. Cybernetic Capitalism Weizenbaum, Joseph. 1976. Computer Power and Human Reason.

Williams, Raymond. The Long Revolution. And 1958. Culture and Society. Zittrain J. The Future of the Internetand How to Stop it. Or Ubiquitous human computing, A Few Books on Media, Technology, and History Bazerman, The Languages of Edisons Light Benjamin, Illuminations Bergson, Time and Free Will Bernays, Propaganda Budiansky, Air Power Campbell-Kelly and Aspray, Computer Canales, A Tenth of a Second Cook, A Brief History of the Human Race Crary, Techniques of the Observer Czitrom, Media and the American Mind Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel Dyson, Darwin Among the Machines Edgerton, The Shock of the Old Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change Elias, The Civilizing Process Galloway, The Exploit Gitelman, New Media, 1740-1915 Goudsblom, The Domestication of Fire Grandy, The Speed of Light Hacking, The Taming of Chance Hall, Encoding/Decoding Havelock, The Muse Learns to Write; Preface to Plato Innis, Empire and Communications; The Bias of Communication; other works. John, Spreading the News Johns, The Nature of the Book Johnston, The Allure of Machinic Life Kaplan, The Nothing that is: A History of Zero Kittler, anything Kris and Speier, German Radio Propaganda, Latour, anything Lazarsfeld and Merton, The Communication of Ideas (Popular Taste chapter especially) Lem, The Cyberiad Lievrouw & Livingstone, Handbook of New Media Maines, The Technology of Orgasm Martin, Hello Central? Marvin, When Old Technologies were New McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy; Understanding Media Mills, The Power Elite Mumford, anything. Needham, Science and Civilization in China Oldenziel, The Cold War Kitchen Peirce, Chance, Love, Logic Peters, Speaking into the Air 9

Pool, Forecasting the Telephone Renfrew, Archaeology and Language Seife, Zero: Biography of a Dangerous Idea Sobel, Longitude Standage, The Victorian Internet Sterne, The Audible Past, MP3: The Meaning of the Format Stiegler, Technics and Time Streeter, Selling the Air Thompson, The Soundscape of Modernity Wallace, A Compact History of Infinity Weizenbaum, Computer Power and Human Reasons White, Medieval Technology and Social Change Wiener, Cybernetics, The Human Use of Human Beings, God and Golem. Yalom, The History of the Chess Queen Zerubavel, The Seven Day Circle Zielinski, Deep Time of the Media

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