Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society

by David Crowley (Editor), Paul Heyer

Communication in History's outstanding selection of readings from classic and contemporary sources gives an extensive overview of the most important ideas in the field. Encompassing topics as wide-ranging as the role of printing in the rise of the modern state and the role of the Internet in the Information Age, this anthology reveals how media have been influential both in maintaining social order and as powerful agents of change. Revised with new readings for the Fifth Edition, Communication in History continues to be, as one reviewer wrote, the only text in the sea of History of Mass Communication texts that introduces students to a more expansive, intellectually enlivening study of the relationship between human history and communication history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Communication, Technology

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Ben Peters · Rating 2 out of 5]

No one--at least no one in their right mind--reviews textbooks. I despise them as a rule. Yet, Communication in History has one redeeming grace: it is not a true textbook. Instead it compiles short pieces from classic works of scholarship fit for most broad-minded approaches to communication and media learning and teaching.

On the other hand, even after six editions, it's far from perfect: it samples lots of great people without selecting, in my mind, the optimal excerpts. I can't blame them. No excerpt exceeds 10 pages, most half that. Still, whatever my complaints, I can't shake the fact that, in a field with a number of relevant readers, this is the only undergraduate-ready "textbook" of its kind that I know of.

The volume includes excerpts from these authors, among many others: (Early civilization) Harold Innis; (Western literacy) Jack Goody and Ian Watt, Eric Havelock, Walter Ong, Umberto Eco; (print revolution) Lewis Mumford, Elizabeth Eisenstein, Walter Ong, John B. Thompson, Robert Darnton; (Electricity) James Carey, Michael Schudson, Claude S. Fischer, Carolyn Marvin, Rosalynd Williams; (Image Technologies and Mass Society) Susan Sontag, Daniel Czitrom; (Radio) Susan Douglas, Marshall McLuhan; (TV) Edmund Carpenter, Lynn Spigel, Pat Aufderheide; (New Media) Neil Postman, James Beniger, Mark Poster.

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great collection of essays. It's worth reading.

[Can]

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[İrem · Rating 1 out of 5]

Çok ağır geldi bana. Tam bir ansiklopedi

[MM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid collection of essays -- very useful in my media history class.

[Matthew Barlow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good academic text about the history of communications