A History of the New Media Revolution

Three hours of lecture per week. This class surveys the origins and development of the new media revolution — from the PC to the Internet to "Web 2.0" participatory technologies such as blogs and wikis. Special attention will paid to the cultural and intellectual impact of the new media revolution upon the traditional publishing, entertainment and information industries. The class will evaluate the economic, political and cultural consequences of the digital revolution — and we will ask whether the user-generated information generated by an increasingly "democratized" new media is making us, as individuals and citizens, either more knowledgeable or wiser.