Course design

The teaching consists of lectures, seminars and exercises, carried out both in the classroom and at our digital platform Canvas. You will practise your skills in writing and analysing in your own blog, in papers and in digital forums. Together with your fellow students you will explore historical source material and secondary literature and improve your ability to make oral presentations.

Course content

The four modules are organised chronologically and address the most important strands of development in Media History and key perspectives on them. Communications through text, sound and image are discussed continuously in their mutual relation to economic, cultural, political and social change. Basic concepts and perspectives of Media History are introduced throughout the modules. The course adopts a broad definition of media and the idea that individual forms of media must be understood in relation to each other.

Module 1: From Stone Tablets to Bookprint, Media History before 1600
This module is an introduction to Media History. Important points of departure will be the broad concept of media, media and historical philosophy, and the relation between old and new media. Chronologically the module ranges from pre-historic time up to the 16th century. Important themes are the first writing systems around the globe, the relationship between oral and written cultures, as well as the introduction of the printing press in Europe, its connections with the religious conflicts of the time and the formation of modern nation-states.

Module 2: Newspapers among other Media, 1600-1850
This module deals with the main outlines of Western Media History with an accent on the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries. The broad themes are the formation of a modern mediated public sphere and the emergence of media markets in relation to the rise of industrial capitalism. In this context we will closely examine oral and written news media, freedom of speech and censorship, the postal system and the popular culture of chapbooks.

Module 3: The Rise of the Modern Media Society, 1850-1940
The module traces the emergence of the later modern media landscape, from mid-19th century until the 1940s. The thematic focus is on the entangled development of national and transnational media such as telegraphic communication systems. For instance, we closely examine the changes of the late 19th century press industry, the transformation of the contributors to the press from literary writers to journalists, the role of advertising and consumption in mass society, the development of audio media (radio, telephone and phonograph) in both private and public listening, early film, and media and propaganda in the era of the world wars.

Module 4: Old and New Media after 1940
This module focuses on the new media technologies that have emerged and spread in the wake of the Second World War. A clear emphasis is on digital media and network cultures, as well as the broad influence of television. Highlighted themes are the cultural understanding of technological development, convergence culture and intermedial relations. We also discuss the press media environment and the changing conditions for journalism, along with analogue and digital sound media. Finally, we analyse the arguments of some of the most influential late 20th century media theorists such as Raymond Williams and Marshall McLuhan.