Media Past and Future
Mitchell Stephens
JOUR-UA.0610
Spring 2015
Man is a tool-using Animal. Weak in himself, and of small stature, he stands on a basis, at most for
the flattest-soled, of some half-square foot, insecurely enough; has to straddle out his legs, lest the
very wind supplant him. Feeblest of bipeds! Three quintals are a crushing load for him; the steer of
the meadow tosses him aloft, like a waste rag. Nevertheless he can use Tools, can devise Tools: with
these the granite mountain melts into light dust before him; he kneads glowing iron, as if it were soft
paste; seas are his smooth highway, winds and fire his unwearying steeds. Nowhere do you find him
without Tools; without Tools he is nothing, with Tools he is all.
-- Thomas Carlyle, 1831
COURSE THEMES:
I. Misuses and uses of new media, new tools
II. Fears of and hopes for new media
III. The effects of new media
a. on thought
b. on social patterns
c. on politics
d. on news
IV. The limitations of forms of communication
V. Innovation
The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet....A Greenwich nautical almanac
he has, and being sure of the information when he wants it, the man in the street does not know a
star in the sky....His note-books impair his memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance-office
increases the number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery does not
encumber....
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1839
1. LANGUAGE. The beginning, the history of language, oral culture, spoken news. Mode of
criticism: Technological determinism.
Readings: Feb. 6, Ong, Orality and Literacy: 3 [IIIa, IV, V]; The Iliad: 19 & 20 [IIIa, IVexample].
Possible in-class essay: Feb. 6.
2. IMAGES. Cave paintings, Biblical injunctions, "the murderous capacity of images," a
picture's worth.
Readings: Feb. 13, Exodus: 19, 20, 32 [II, IIIa]; Plato's Republic: X, pp 459-67 [II];
Baudrillard, "The Precession of Simulacra: pp. 254-7 [II, IIIa].
Possible in-class essay: Feb. 13.
Contemporary connection: The discourse about media – fears about the digital future.
Mode of criticism: Pessimistic.
Reading: Feb. 20, Shteyngart [II, III].
Innovation workshop: Innovation in subject matter: the Intracranial.
History of the Media
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Possible in-class essay: Feb. 20.
No class, Feb. 27. Extra class end of semester.
3. WRITING. Logographic writing, the alphabet, the effects of literacy, lists and abstract
thought, news and empire, the absence of presence. Mode of criticism:
Deconstruction/postmodern, political.
Readings: March 6, Plato's Phaedrus: 67-71 [II, IV]. March 1, Aristotle's Rhetoric, Book I,
chapter 5 [IIIa-example]; Innis, "Media in Ancient Empires" [IIIa,c].
Possible in-class essay: March 6.
March 6: Intracranial assignment due.
Innovation workshop: The potential of video and the Internet. Reading: March 13,
Stephens, “Thinking Through Moving Media” [I, II, IIIa, V].
Project # 1: Video. Form groups for video project.
Possible in-class essay: March 13.
4. PRINT. China, movable type, the Reformation, imitation, science, early news
publications, early books, linearity, novels, newspapers, periodicity, revolutions. Mode of
criticism: Political.
Readings: March 27, McLuhan, Understanding Media: 18/The Printed Word [I, IIIa,b,c, IV];
Henry James, Brooksmith [IIIa,b, IV-example].
March 27: Short, in-class midterm.
Innovation Workshop: The Nature of innovation: April 3, Johnson [I, V]. Mode of criticism:
Whiggish.
Possible in-class essay: April 3.
April 3: Project # 1 due.
5. PHOTOGRAPHY and FILM. Niepce, Daguerre, the pencil of nature, Muybridge, the
instant, dignity, integrity and character, grace and beauty, spectacles and morality, realism
and modernism, "canned theater," what moves in moving pictures, The speed of media,
Griffith, the close-up, parallel editing, montage, Eisenstein.
Readings: April 17, Sontag, On Photography: pp. 3-17 [IIIa, IV, V].
Possible in-class essay: April 10.
Innovation workshop: Enabling new thinking. April 17. Each student will be required to
read and report to the class on a book about an innovator – past or recent [V].
Project # 2: Digital. Form groups for digital project.
History of the Media
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6. TELEGRAPH and RADIO. Morse, reporting, the speed of news, the Civil War, the
speed of life, Marconi, Edison, the age of invention, misunderstanding radio. Mode of
criticism: Economic.
Readings: April 24, Czitrom, Media and the American Mind: 1 & 3 [I, II].
Innovation workshop: Innovation in subject matter: Reporting on the other.
Possible in-class essay: April 24.
7. TELEVISION. Farnsworth, the first era of video, the "golden age," the 1960s, Vietnam,
couch potatoes, the limitations of broadcast television, the second television revolution,
satellites, cable, the suburbs, violence, pornography, homogenization, the death of reading,
civic life, social life.
Readings: May 1. Kosinski [II, IIIa,c]; Wallace, "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S.
Fiction" [II, IIIa,b, V].
Possible in-class essay: May 1.
May 1. Project # 2 due.
8. DIGITAL. The Internet, the Web, blogs, "Data Smog," the age of sufficient information,”
possible technological futures.
Readings: May 8, Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near, chapter 1 [I, II, V]. Modes of criticism:
Pessimistic and optimistic.
Possible in-class essay: May 8.
Extra class: Sunday, May 11, 4 to 6, 924 West End Ave, apt. 72. Entrance 105rd west of
Broadway. Take 1 train to 103rd.
May 11: Reporting on the other assignment due.
FINAL EXAM: May 15, 12:30 to 2:30.
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BOOKS:
Shteyngart, Super Sad True Love Story.
Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation.
Kosinski, Being There.
….plus one more.
Some suggested books about an innovator:
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The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Oliver Carlson, James Gordon Bennett: The Man Who Made News
James Mcgrath Morris, Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power
Charles Petzold, The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on
Computability and the Turing Machine
Howard Rheingold, Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Expanding Technology
Paul Freiberger, Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer
History of the Media
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Steve Wozniak, iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, CoFounded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It
Michael A. Hiltzik, Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age
Steven Levy, Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer That Changed
Everything
Tim Berners-Lee, Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide
Web
John Battelle, The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and
Transformed Our Culture
Richard L. Brandt, Inside Larry and Sergey's Brain
OTHER READINGS: Will be on NYU Classes.
IN-CLASS ESSAYS: On some -- but not all -- of the dates listed in the schedule, a very
short writing assignment will be given at the beginning of class. This assignment will be
closed book and closed notes and will be designed to determine who has thought about
recent readings and class discussions. No make-ups will be allowed.
MIDTERM: Short, in-class, closed-book, closed-note essay questions.
PROJECTS: Two small-group experiments in innovative video and innovated digital.
INTRACRANIAL ASSIGNMENT: A short (one-page) written exercise in reporting on how
someone – yourself or someone else – thinks. Due March 6.
REPORTING ON THE OTHER ASSIGNMENT: Report on a person who represents
something that makes you uncomfortable – heavy if you’re obsessed with being thin;
covered with studs or tattoos, if that bothers you; right-wing, if you’re militantly left-wing.
Can be print, video or digital. The equivalent of 800 words. Due May 11.
FINAL: Essay, closed book and closed notes.
GRADES: Based on final, journalistic essay, projects, in-class essays, midterm and class
participation – in, roughly, that order.
________________________________
OFFICE: 20 Cooper Square, room 706, 212-998-3792.
OFFICE HOURS: Thursday and Friday: 10:45 – 12:15, and by appointment. Students are
encouraged to stop by.
EMAIL: mitch.stephens@nyu.edu