Communication in history : technology, culture, society

Part I: Media of early civilization. The earliest precursors of writing / Denise Schmandt-Besserat ; Media in ancient empires / Harold Innis ; Civilization without writing : the Incas and the Quipu / Marcia Ascher and Robert Ascher ; The origins of writing / Andrew Robinson

Part II: The tradition of Western literacy. The Greek legacy / Eric Havelock ; Writing and the alphabet effect / Robert K. Logan ; Orality, literacy, and modern media / Walter Ong ; Communication and faith in the Middle Ages / James Burke and Robert Ornstein

Part III: The print revolution. Paper and block printing : from China to Europe / Thomas F. Carter ; The invention of printing / Lewis Mumford ; Aspects of the printing revolution / Elizabeth Eisenstein ; Early modern literacies / Harvey J. Graff ; The trade in news / John B. Thompson

Part IV: Electricity creates the wired world. Telegraphy : the Victorian Internet / Tom Standage ; The new journalism / Michael Schudson ; The telephone takes command / Claude S. Fisher ; Time, space, and the telegraph / James W. Carey

Part V: Image technologies and the emergence of mass society. Dream worlds of consumption / Rosalynd Williams ; Early photojournalism / Ulrich Keller ; Inscribing sound / Lisa Gitelman ; The making of the phonograph / Jonathan Sterne ; Early motion pictures / Daniel Czitrom ; Movies talk / Scott Eyman ; Mass media and the star system / Jib Fowles

Part VI: Radio days. Wireless world / Stephen Kern ; The public voice of radio / John Durham Peters ; Early radio / Susan J. Douglas ; The golden age of programming / Christopher Sterling and John M. Kittross ; Radio voices / Michele Hilmes ; Radio in the television age / Peter Fornatale and Joshua E. Mills

Part VII: TV times. Television begins / William Boddy ; The new languages / Edmund Carpenter ; Making room for TV / Lynn Spigel ; Television transforms the news / Mitchell Stephens ; Two cultures : television versus print / Neil Postman and Camille Paglia ; TV in the net-age / Henry Jenkins

Part VIII: New media and old in the information age. The control revolution / James Beniger ; How media became new / Lev Manovich ; Popularizing the Internet / Janet Abbate ; The World Wide Web / Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin ; A mobile network society / Manuel Castells [and others]