This is an archived course. Visit the most recent syllabus.

Course Description

An overview of twelve media technologies: writing, manual printing, mass printing, photography, telegraphy, telephony, motion pictures, sound recording, radio, television, computers, and the internet. We will examine the technical development of each technology, the function of each, and the impact each had on the cultures adopting it.

Format

This is an asynchronous online course run on this site and on Google Classroom.

Google Classroom requires a QC CAMS account, an active QC Google Apps for Education account, and an enrollment code.

For each of the twelve media technologies, there will be…

  1. a short pre-recorded lecture, about twenty minutes in length, that you will listen to at the time of your choosing.
  2. assigned readings from the required textbooks
  3. a quiz on the material you just covered.

After covering four media technologies, there will be an exam on the material you covered.

Instructor

Juan Monroy

Textbooks

The following textbooks are available through the QC online bookstore and on reserve at Rosenthal Library. Be sure you buy the correct editions noted below.

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Electronic editions of Alphabet to Internet are available from the following booksellers:

Google Apps for Education

This course will make heavy use of Google Apps for Education using your QC CAMS account. You will not be able to access these Apps using your personal Gmail account.

About Google accounts

You can have more than one Google account. If you use Gmail, you already have a Google Account: it is likely a personal Google account. Google offers organizations—businesses and educational institutions—to establish accounts for its users. Since you’re enrolled at QC, you have access to a QC Google Apps account.

You can be logged into both accounts at the same time, but you will likely have to switch between accounts to access your QC Google Apps versus your personal Google Apps.

Activate Your QC Google Apps account

The Center for Teaching and Learning offers detailed instructions for activating (or claiming) your QC Google Apps account. The process comes down to three steps.

  1. Go to http://gdrive.qc.cuny.edu.
  2. Sign in with your QC CAMS account. Use your QC username (e.g. jmonroy100) and your QC CAMS password. Note that this is different than your QMAIL username and password.
  3. Accept the terms of service.

Access your QC Google Apps account at https://google.com/a/qc.cuny.edu.

Join Google Classroom

Google Classroom is a barebones, learning management system that we will use for our course. We will not be using Blackboard. I will also post announcements to Google Classroom, instead of emailing everyone in class. Here you will find all of your assignments including:

  • prerecorded lectures
  • required readings not found in the textbook
  • reading quizzes
  • exams

To add the class:

  1. Go to Google Classroom.
  2. Sign in using your QC CAMS login.
  3. Near the top-left of the browser, click the “+” to “Join class.”
  4. Enter the course code I emailed to your QC email account.

Download the Google Classroom mobile apps for iOS or Android.

Use the QC Google Apps

We will be using several QC Google Apps in this class.

  • Google Drive is a cloud-based file storage platform. Your QC Google Drive offers unlimited storage, compared to 15 GB with your personal Google Drive. Download the Google Drive mobile apps for iOS or Android.
  • Google Docs is a cloud-based, word-processing application. It is comparable to Microsoft Word except that all your documents are stored in your Google Drive. Be sure you’re using your QC Google Apps account, not your personal Google account. Download the Google Docs mobile apps for iOS or Android.
  • Google Hangouts is a video-based, communication platform used for office hours. Download the Google Hangouts mobile apps for iOS or Android.

Policies

Late Work

Please submit your work on time. Late work will be penalized by a 10% reduction for each 24-hour period it is late. After three days, the assignment will not be accepted and you will likely fail this class.

For assignments due on Google Classroom, it may mark an assignment as “late” if you don’t submit it as “Done” by the specified deadline. I will consider work as late if it is not ready when I go to grade it.

Please ensure that you complete assignments early in order to avoid any confusion and receive full credit.

“Incomplete” Grades

There will be no incomplete grades for this class except in the case of a documented emergency in the final weeks of the semester. If you experience such an emergency, please contact me immediately, and we will work out a schedule for you to complete the outstanding work before the beginning of the following semester.

But aside from these circumstances, no late work will be accepted and no “incomplete” grades will be granted. If you have difficulty keeping up with coursework, consider giving yourself extra time to complete assignments, reducing your overall course load, and/or taking this class at a later semester.

Check Your QC Email

Please check your QC email account student@qmail.cuny.edu on a daily basis, if not more frequently. I will broadcast announcements and send point-to-point communiques using your official email address.

Set up your QC email on your personal devices.

Please note that I am not allowed to discuss your grade from an account that is not your official email account.

Academic Dishonesty

Academic dishonesty is prohibited in The City University of New York. Penalties for academic dishonesty include academic sanctions, such as failing or otherwise reduced grades, and/or disciplinary sanctions, including suspension or expulsion. Examples of Academic Dishonesty include cheating, plagiarism, obtaining an unfair advantage, and falsification of records and official documents.

Cheating is the unauthorized use or attempted use of material, information, notes, study aids, devices or communication during an academic exercise. Plagiarism is the act of presenting another person’s ideas, research or writings as your own. Obtaining Unfair Advantage is any action taken by a student that gives that student an unfair advantage in his/her academic work over another student, or an action taken by a student through which a student attempts to gain an unfair advantage in his or her academic work over another student.

For tips and information on how to maintain academic integrity, consult Writing at Queens document, “What is Plagiarism?”.

Students with Disabilities

Queens College has a history of commitment to the enhancement of education of students with disabilities. The Office of Special Services for Students with Disabilities was established in 1974 to provide equal opportunities for a college education to academically qualified students with physical disabilities. The office offers comprehensive support services to students with various disabilities. Queens College prohibits discrimination against students with disabilities and it ensures full access and equal opportunity to qualified students with disabilities to all academic programs and social activities on campus.

To receive these services, a student must first register with the office in Kiely 171. To do so, you must bring proper documentation pertaining to the nature of your disability from a qualified professional. To learn more about CUNY Assistive Technology Services and the office located at Queens College, call (718) 997–3775 or visit Kiely Hall 173. For more information, visit The Office of Special Services.

Assignments

Quizzes

After auditioning each recorded lecture and reading the relevant chapters from the textbooks, you will take a quiz. Each quiz consists of about ten questions—a mix of true-false and multiple-choice. The quiz will be available online as a Google Form.

Note the quiz deadlines. No late quizzes will be accepted.

All twelve quizzes are required and constitute 40% of your final grade.

Exams

There will be three exams. Each exam will consist of five essay questions that you will submit on Google Classroom by the due date listed below.

  1. Exam 1, due July 14
  2. Exam 2, due July 24
  3. Exam 3, due August 1

All three exams are required and constitute 60% of your final grade.

Schedule

As this course is asynchronous, the dates on this schedule are suggested dates of completion. However, the due dates for each assignment—including quizzes and exams—are firm and must be completed on-time in order to receive credit.

July 5 • Welcome

  1. Watch the video: Welcome to Media Technologies, Summer 2016
  2. Buy the required textbooks:
  3. Activate your Google Apps at QC account
  4. Join the class on Google Classroom: uins937

July 8 • Writing

The first media technology was writing because it allowed humans to store, transmit, and retrieve knowledge in ways that oral cultures simply could not.

Reading

As you await the arrival of your textbooks, I am providing these readings as PDFs. Use your QC Google Apps login for access.

  • Fang, Irving. “Writing: Gathering Thought.” In Alphabet to Internet: Media In Our Lives, 13–35. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2015. You should also read the introductory chapter.
  • Robinson, Andrew. “The Origins of Writing.” In Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society, edited by D. J Crowley and Paul Heyer, 5th ed., 36–42. Boston: Allyn & Bacon/Pearson, 2007.
Assignments
Review

July 11 • Early Print

Early print allowed information to be printed in books that were produced using manual (hand-operated) machines, such as the medieval printing press. Beginning in the fifteenth century, the printing press would shape modern Europe.

Reading

As you await the arrival of your textbooks, I am providing these readings as PDFs. Use your QC Google Apps login for access.

  • Fang, Irving. “Early Printing: Reaching More of Us.” In Alphabet to Internet: Media In Our Lives, 37–57. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2015.
  • Graff, Harvey J. “Early Modern Literacies.” In Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society, edited by D. J Crowley and Paul Heyer, 5th ed., 104–112. Boston: Allyn & Bacon/Pearson, 2007.
Assignments
Review
Did you know…?

July 12 • Mass Print

The steam engine and the attendant industrial revolution of the eighteenth brought mass production. The mechanical printing press brought new print forms—inexpensive books, newspapers, and magazines— and the attendant mass culture of the nineteenth century.

Reading
  • Fang, Irving. “Mass Printing: Reaching Still More.” In Alphabet to Internet: Media In Our Lives, 59–85. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2015.
  • Thompson, John B. “The Trade in News.” In Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society, edited by D. J Crowley and Paul Heyer, 5th ed., 113–116. Boston: Allyn & Bacon/Pearson, 2007.
Assignments
Review

July 13 • Photography

Beginning in the 1830s, the reproduction of light becomes a mechanical, photochemical process, that produce images that both memorialize individuals and bind together entire cultures.

Reading
  • Fang, Irving. “Photography: Personal and So Much More.” In Alphabet to Internet: Media In Our Lives, 163–181. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2015.
  • Keller, Ulrich. “Early Photojournalism.” In Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society, edited by D. J Crowley and Paul Heyer, 5th ed., 161–168. Boston: Allyn & Bacon/Pearson, 2007.
Assignments
Review

July 15 • Telegraph

Electricity and communication merge for the first time in the electromagnetic telegraph of the 1840s and annihilate space and time in the nineteenth century.

Reading
  • Fang, Irving. “Telegraph: Uniting the United States.” In Alphabet to Internet: Media In Our Lives, 111–123. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2015.
  • Carey, James. “Technology and Ideology: The Case of the Telegraph.” Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society, revised ed., 155–177. London: Routledge, 2009.
  • Standage, Thomas. “Telegraphy: The Victorian Internet.” In Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society, edited by D. J Crowley and Paul Heyer, 5th ed., 121–129. Boston: Allyn & Bacon/Pearson, 2007.
Assignments
Recommended Screening
Review

July 18 • Telephone

Though hardly designed to do so in 1876, the telephone renders many functions of the telegraph obsolete. Throughout the twentieth century, the telephone emerges as a communication utility controlled by a monopoly.

Reading
  • Fang, Irving. “Telephone: Reaching without Touching.” In Alphabet to Internet: Media In Our Lives, 125–146. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2015.
  • Fischer, Claude. “The Telephone Takes Command.” In Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society, edited by D. J Crowley and Paul Heyer, 5th ed., 143–149. Boston: Allyn & Bacon/Pearson, 2007.
Assignments
Review

July 19 • Motion Pictures

A combination of earlier photographic technologies yields the motion picture camera in the 1890s and the emergence of a popular entertainment form in the 1900s.

Reading
  • Fang, Irving. “Silent Film: The Audience Awaits” and “A Movie Century: Moving Us.” In Alphabet to Internet: Media In Our Lives, 183–223. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2015.
  • Czitrom, Daniel. “Early Motion Pictures.” In Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society, edited by D. J Crowley and Paul Heyer, 5th ed., 176–183. Boston: Allyn & Bacon/Pearson, 2007.
Assignments
Review

July 20 • Recorded Sound

In the late nineteenth century, the recording of sound evolves from preserving speech to disrupting the printed music industry and establishes a commercial industry producing musical sound recordings.

Reading
Assignments
Review

July 22 • Radio

Radio emerges as the first technology to transmit an electromagnetic signal without a physical medium, potentially undermining every other communications media theretofore established.

Reading
  • Fang, Irving. “Radio: Helping Us Through the Rough Years.” In Alphabet to Internet: Media In Our Lives, 225–249. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2015.
  • Douglas, Susan. “Early Radio.” In Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society, edited by D. J Crowley and Paul Heyer, 5th ed., 210–217. Boston: Allyn & Bacon/Pearson, 2007.
Assignments
Screening
Review

July 25 • Television

In the 1930s, television emerges as electromagnetic motion pictures—known as video—transmitted using radio signal. Television would have cannibalized broadcast radio were it not for the radio companies developing television in the first place to cannibalize themselves.

Reading
  • Fang, Irving. “Television: Pictures in Our Parlors.” In Alphabet to Internet: Media In Our Lives, 251–276. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2015.
  • Boddy, William. “Television Begins.” In Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society, edited by D. J Crowley and Paul Heyer, 5th ed., 244–253. Boston: Allyn & Bacon/Pearson, 2007.
  • Spigel, Lynn. “Making Room for TV.” In Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society, edited by D. J Crowley and Paul Heyer, 5th ed., 259–267. Boston: Allyn & Bacon/Pearson, 2007.
Assignments
Review

July 26 • Computers

Computers emerge as a media technology with digital media—the merger between modern media forms and computable code.

Reading
  • Fang, Irving. “Computers: Beyond Calculation.” In Alphabet to Internet: Media In Our Lives, 277–291. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2015.
  • Manovich, Lev. “How Media Became New.” In Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society, edited by D. J Crowley and Paul Heyer, 5th ed., 319–322. Boston: Allyn & Bacon/Pearson, 2007.
Assignments
Review

July 27 • Internet

Developed as a distributed computer network transmitting binary code as packets, the Internet emerges as the connective tissue for digital media throughout the world.

Reading
  • Fang, Irving. “The Internet: The World at Our Finger Tips.” In Alphabet to Internet: Media In Our Lives, 293–313. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2015.
  • Abbate, Janet. “Popularizing the Internet.” In Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society, edited by D. J Crowley and Paul Heyer, 5th ed., 323–328. Boston: Allyn & Bacon/Pearson, 2007.
Assignments
Review