"New" Media Technologies

Seminar by Gilbert Rodman

It has become something of a cliché to claim that the world has been "revolutionized" by the broad and eclectic range of "new" communication technologies that includes the Internet, laptop computers, TiVo, iPods, Blackberries, and the like. How true that cliché is, however, depends a great deal on which technologies one is talking about, where in the world one is trying to measure their impact, and precisely what counts as a "revolutionary" change. The actual relationship between technology and culture is rarely (if ever) as simple as such clichés make it out to be. This seminar will offer a brief introduction to some of the foundational issues in critical approaches to media technology.

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