COM3323 THE INFORMATION AGE
McDaniel College Department of Communication
Richard W. Dillman (rdillman@ticopa.com)
(See calendar for specific due dates.)
During the discussion you will log on to the discussion board and post your thoughts, ideas, comments and questions about the reading. Note that this means that you have to finish the reading before the discussion date listed on the course calendar.
• Information, online at Happy Fun Communication Land
• The Communication Environment, online at Happy Fun Communication Land
• Levinson, The Soft Edge
• (Optional) Appignanesi and Garratt, Introducing Postmodernism
1. Read the Information section AND The Communication Environment section at Happy Fun Communication Land
Before discussing Levinson, you need to establish a working definition for the term "information." You also need a general idea of the scope of mediated telecommunications.
2. Read all of Levinson.
This will be the primary text for this part of the course. Weekly assignments are given in the course calendar. Levinson provides a historical time line for the development of electronic technologies. These technologies create a communications framework within which "information" societies can arise.
3. Be sure that you understand the postmodern concept of "texts." Be sure that you understand the theory of the social construction of reality.
If you have studied these ideas in previous courses, you can review your earlier notes. If you have never studied these ideas, Appignanesi and Garratt's Introducing Postmodernism is an inexpensive book that provides a good summary. These ideas are also summarized (though not in depth) in Happy Fun Communication Land.
• McLuhan, Understanding Media
Read Part I of Understanding Media. This is approximately 60 pages, but McLuhan's ideas can be a bit slippery. You probably will have to re-read frequently.
McLuhan invented theories about electronic communication that we take for granted today. "The Medium Is The Message" … we live in a "Global Village"… electronic communication produces "Distributed" culture … media are mirrors that relect the values of the societies that use them … these are among his more famous ideas. Although his book is difficult, its mind-bending concepts laid the groundwork for the development of post-modern communication theory.
• Levine, Locke, Searle, Weinberger, The Cluetrain Manifesto
Of course the Internet is too large a subject to cover in one section of a class. So one focus will be on the impact of the Internet on the relationship between businesses and their customers. Cluetrain is a famous little book, originally distributed online, that exploded the old myths of "brick and mortar" business and introduced managers to the Internet revolution. The question will be: what changed and why?
• The readings will be online. I will assign them based on our discussions in the earlier part of the course.
The second focus will be on the social implications of our using instantaneous communications on a global scale. The Internet serves as a kind of "Main Street" where everyone can gather to shop, talk, and see what's going on. Cellular phones, pads and pods enable networks of person-to-person connections that allow friends to keep in "touch" with one another from anywhere.
This is all very new. It is creating kinds of communication and styles of relationships that have never existed before. In the class discussion we will draw on your own experiences as well as on web sites and other online sources. The question will be: what is going on here and does it really matter?
(See calendar for specific due dates.)
The discussion board will have a thread with your name on it. I expect you to post at least three messages to this thread every week. You should plan to post questions and comments about what you are reading and thinking. I will read all of your messages and post my own in response.
I will grade your participation in the discussion at midterm and again at the end of the course.
Your grade will account for both the volume and quality of your messages. I am looking to see that you have done the reading, that you are seeking to understand the reading, and that you are making progress in understanding the contents of the course. Your goal in the discussion should be to show me what you are learning. Spelling, grammar and English composition are very important. Messages that are poorly written will not count very much at all.
Three times during the course I will give you a question to answer or problem to solve.
The purpose of these assignments is to give you a chance to write a longer report that will show how you well you are understanding what you have read, and how you are integrating this new knowledge with what you have already studied in other Communication courses.
You will post your results to the discussion board. See the course calendar for the due dates on these assignments.
Each class member will have a different question or project. However, each set of assignments will have a theme.
Assignment 1: I will give you a question or problem that relates to the reading in Levinson.
Assignment 2: I will ask you to explain a concept or idea from McLuhan and relate it to what you learned in previous communication courses.
Assignment 3: This is the final assignment for the course. I will ask you to research a question or problem in social or global media and report on how your research fits in with what you have learned in Levinson and McLuhan.