COM3323 THE INFORMATION AGE
McDaniel College Department of Communication
Richard W. Dillman (rdillman@ticopa.com)
This course is currently asleep. To log on to the Discussion Board you need an ID and password. These were sent to you by email. If you cannot find them, please contact me immediately and I will send you an update. If you have any questions at any time, please contact me by email ASAP. My email address is: rdillman@ticopa.com |
The personal and institutional implications of the employment of electronic
mediated communication systems such as the telephone, television, and
internet. Particular attention is paid to current thought regarding the
development of new communication technologies.
Widespread changes in a society's dominant communication media alter the day to day lives of the people who inhabit the society. This course will focus on the social changes brought about by the transition from ink-on-paper communications to the electronic digital communications of today's "information" societies. Historians and theorists of communication have addressed these changes, and our studies will include a discussion of some of their work.
This is the order in which we will discuss the required texts. See the Course Calendar for specific dates.
These span three categories. See the Course Calendar for assignment due dates. Additional details will be posted to the Class Discussion Board as they evolve.
Levinson provides a concise history of the development of electronic information technology. While you will need to go to more detailed sources for some of your work, this book sets the scene very nicely. If you have not studied the notion of Postmodernism in an earlier course, you should read an overview of the subject as soon as possible. Appignanesi and Garratt is short and to the point, but it covers all of the major ideas. Happy Fun Communication Land is my own online communication textbook. If you want to know my personal point of view with regard to communication theory, this is the place to look.
McLuhan changed the way we think and talk about communication media. This book is difficult, and you will not be required to read it in its entirety. However, you will read enough to get a sense of the worldview that has evolved from McLuhan's ideas.
Cluetrain is a short document that announced the wave of changes that were coming to business with the rise of networked social interaction. I'll choose other websites that illustrate this point for social, leisure and other activities.
The appearance and remarkable growth of globally networked telecommunications systems has produced a number of key questions. What is "social networking"? What is "globalism"? Do these produce a society that is different from earlier ones? If so, what is the role of communication in this new world order?
The COM3323 Discussion Board is provided for the use of class members. You will have to give your ID code and password to be able to use the board. These will be distributed at the beginning of the course. Each week you will log on to the discussion board and post your observations and questions about the ideas that we are considering at the time. I participate in this discussion, too, and it serves as the main venue for the course.
I maintain a "blog" for the course to which I post comments and notes, much as I would provide in a lecture in a traditional course. You can find the blog at: rDilCourseBlog.
This online course operates very differently from the way a "regular" classroom class operates. Please read all of the pages at this web site. Be sure to read the emails that I send you -- they contain important information about the class. And be sure to keep very close track of the messages that are being posted to the class discussion board.
See the Course Calendar for the list of class assignments and their due dates. Additional details about assignments will be posted to the Discussion Board as the class procedes.
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(Yes, this adds up to 120. The extra points are "extra credit." I use these to cover absenses and other emergencies. There are no "lates" or "makeups" in the course.) |
Scale |
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90+ |
A |
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80-89 |
B |
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65-79 |
C |
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60-65 |
D |
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59- |
F |
See the Assignments and Grading page for a detailed description of the course assignments.