Key Words & Concepts in Media History

early media
oral & scribal culture

print media
printing & publishing, journalism, photography, advertising, comics

electric media
telegraphy, telephony, sound recording

mass & broadcast media
radio, film, television

digital media
computers

advisory boards

"Communication is at once a structure of human action -- activity, process, practice -- an ensemble of expressive forms, and a structured and structuring set of social relations. To describe communication is not merely to describe a constellation of enshrined ideas; it is also to describe a constellation of practices that enshrine and determine those ideas in a set of technical and social forms."
-- James Carey,
Communication as Culture,
(Boston: Unwin Hyman 1989),
ps. 86-87.

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The Media History Project
Keywords, Concepts & Theorists
Update in progress

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Media Theorists | Search the Web

a: "The Annihilation of Space and Time"
Art and Technology, from the Actlab gopher at the University of Texas
Audio Recording History, by Geoffrey Rubinstein, Jones Digital Century
b
James Gordon Bennett
c
Cable Television, by Paul Stranahan, Jones Digital Century
William Caxton, first English printer. From the Graphion Type Museum
Collective Memory
Communication, by Thomas Sebeok
Community Networks, by Willard Uncapher
Computer History, by Christopher LaMorte with John Lilly, Jones Digital Century
Computer Mediated Communication, CMC Online Bibliography, both by John December

Critical Studies
Marxist Approaches to the Mass Media, by Daniel Chandler, Univ. of Wales; Art and Technology, from the Actlab gopher at the University of Texas
Audio Recording History, by Geoffrey Rubinstein, Jones Digital Century
b
James Gordon Bennett
c
Cable Television, by Paul Stranahan, Jones Digital Century
William Caxton, first English printer. From the Graphion Type Museum
Collective Memory
Communication, by Thomas Sebeok
Community Networks, by Willard Uncapher
Computer History, by Christopher LaMorte with John Lilly, Jones Digital Century
Computer Mediated Communication, CMC Online Bibliography, both by John December

Critical Studies
Marxist Approaches to the Mass Media, by Daniel Chandler, Univ. of Wales; Audio Recording History, by Geoffrey Rubinstein, Jones Digital Century
b
James Gordon Bennett
c
Cable Television, by Paul Stranahan, Jones Digital Century
William Caxton, first English printer. From the Graphion Type Museum
Collective Memory
Communication, by Thomas Sebeok
Community Networks, by Willard Uncapher
Computer History, by Christopher LaMorte with John Lilly, Jones Digital Century
Computer Mediated Communication, CMC Online Bibliography, both by John December

Critical Studies
Marxist Approaches to the Mass Media, by Daniel Chandler, Univ. of Wales
b: James Gordon Bennett
c
Cable Television, by Paul Stranahan, Jones Digital Century
William Caxton, first English printer. From the Graphion Type Museum
Collective Memory
Communication, by Thomas Sebeok
Community Networks, by Willard Uncapher
Computer History, by Christopher LaMorte with John Lilly, Jones Digital Century
Computer Mediated Communication, CMC Online Bibliography, both by John December

Critical Studies
Marxist Approaches to the Mass Media, by Daniel Chandler, Univ. of Wales
c: Cable Television, by Paul Stranahan, Jones Digital Century
William Caxton, first English printer. From the Graphion Type Museum
Collective Memory
Communication, by Thomas Sebeok
Community Networks, by Willard Uncapher
Computer History, by Christopher LaMorte with John Lilly, Jones Digital Century
Computer Mediated Communication, CMC Online Bibliography, both by John December

Critical Studies
Marxist Approaches to the Mass Media, by Daniel Chandler, Univ. of Wales; William Caxton, first English printer. From the Graphion Type Museum
Collective Memory
Communication, by Thomas Sebeok
Community Networks, by Willard Uncapher
Computer History, by Christopher LaMorte with John Lilly, Jones Digital Century
Computer Mediated Communication, CMC Online Bibliography, both by John December

Critical Studies
Marxist Approaches to the Mass Media, by Daniel Chandler, Univ. of Wales; Collective Memory
Communication, by Thomas Sebeok
Community Networks, by Willard Uncapher
Computer History, by Christopher LaMorte with John Lilly, Jones Digital Century
Computer Mediated Communication, CMC Online Bibliography, both by John December

Critical Studies
Marxist Approaches to the Mass Media, by Daniel Chandler, Univ. of Wales; Communication, by Thomas Sebeok
Community Networks, by Willard Uncapher
Computer History, by Christopher LaMorte with John Lilly, Jones Digital Century
Computer Mediated Communication, CMC Online Bibliography, both by John December

Critical Studies
Marxist Approaches to the Mass Media, by Daniel Chandler, Univ. of Wales; Community Networks, by Willard Uncapher
Computer History, by Christopher LaMorte with John Lilly, Jones Digital Century
Computer Mediated Communication, CMC Online Bibliography, both by John December

Critical Studies
Marxist Approaches to the Mass Media, by Daniel Chandler, Univ. of Wales; Computer History, by Christopher LaMorte with John Lilly, Jones Digital Century
Computer Mediated Communication, CMC Online Bibliography, both by John December

Critical Studies
Marxist Approaches to the Mass Media, by Daniel Chandler, Univ. of Wales; Computer Mediated Communication, CMC Online Bibliography, both by John December

Critical Studies
Marxist Approaches to the Mass Media, by Daniel Chandler, Univ. of Wales; Critical Studies
Marxist Approaches to the Mass Media, by Daniel Chandler, Univ. of Wales; Marxist Approaches to the Mass Media, by Daniel Chandler, Univ. of Wales

Cultural Studies

Cultural Studies and Critical Theory

See also Ron Burnett's Critical and Cultural Studies Pages

Culture and Technology, a long list of links from the English Server

e

Economics of Media: See The Media Monopoly, by Ben Bagdikian. See also The 50, 26, 20 ... Corporations That Own Our Media, also by Bagdikian

Electronic Democracy, Annotated Bibliography, by Scott London

f

Film, Video and Television History, from Sound Site

The Fourth Estate

g

"Global Village"; see also Global Literacy in a Gutenberg Culture, by Al Rogers

Johannes Gutenberg, Mainz goldsmith and inventor of the Western moveable type printing press. From the Graphion Type Museum.

h

The Hearst Corporation, for William Randolph Hearst

Hearst Monument Foundation, for the Hearst Castle

High Definition Television (HDTV)

i

History of the Index, by Jean A. Jacobson

"Information Age"

Harold Adams Innis: Special issue of Continuum containing numerous wonderful essays on Communications Dependency/Space/Policy [Australia]

l

Law -- History of its Dissemination, by Charles Casassa

Literacy

m

"Marketplace of Ideas"

Martin Luther's 95 Theses, translated into English by Adolph Spaeth, L.D. Reed, Henry Eyster Jacobs, et Al., Trans. & Eds. (Philadelphia: A. J. Holman Company, 1915), Vol. 1, pp. 29-38.

Mass Culture

"The conception of persons as masses springs, not from an inability to know them, but from an interpretation of them according to a formula ... " -- Raymond Williams, 1958

Marshall McLuhan

Media Theory Definitions, by Matt X

The Media Monopoly, by Ben Bagdikian. See also The 50, 26, 20 ... Corporations That Own Our Media, also by Bagdikian

Mis-en-scene, montage

Muckraking Bibliography

Muckraking

n

Negative Classicism

o

Objectivity: Public Journalism and the Problem of Objectivity, by Philip Meyer; Objectivity and Journalism, Interview with Jay Rosen, by William Glaberson, New York Times, December 12, 1994

Orality and Secondary Orality

p

Paper: The Invention of Paper, The Spread of Paper, and Paper Making -- all from The American Museum of Paper Making

"The Peoples' Right to Know"

The Phonograph, by Geoffrey Rubinstein, Jones Digital Century

Political Economics

Popular Culture

Postmodern Virtualities, by Mark Poster

Postmodernism

Progress

Origins of Progressivism

The Public