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Despite Marshall McLuhan's famous pronouncement that "the medium is the message", media critics have long focused on the content and form of verbal and nonverbal communication -- for the most part neglecting how messages are produced or formatted in the various media. Filling a significant void, this book shows how criticism changes when the medium of transmission is taken into account. Three specific technological cultures that historically have defined human communication are identified -- the oral, the literate, and the electronic -- and their structural features and social implications are examined. Highlighted throughout are ways that media criticism may serve as a basis for assessing, evaluating, and responding to the effects of communication technologies upon what we know and how we experience the world.
List of contents
I. Introduction. A History of Human Communication. A World of Communication Technologies and the Human Response. II. The Critical Moment and the Critic's Method. The Critical Process. III. Media Cultures. The Oral Cultures. The Literature Culture. The Electronic Culture. IV. A Future Perspective. Analyzing Media Comparatively: Comparative Media Criticism and the Future of Media Criticism. Glossary.
About the author
James W. Chesebro, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Communication at Indiana State University, Terre Haute. A past President of the Speech Communication Association, he also has served as Director of Educational Services in the Association's National Office in Annandale, Virginia, as Chair of its Publications Board, and as a member of its Administrative Committee and Legislative Council. Widely published, he was the Editor of Communication Quarterly from 1985 through 1987, and his articles have appeared in such publications as the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Communication Monographs, Communication Education, Text and Performance Quarterly, and Critical Studies in Mass Communication. He has also received a number of awards, including the Speech Communication Association's "Golden Anniversary Award" for the outstanding monograph of the year, the "Everett Lee Hunt Scholarship Award," and the "Distinguished Service Award" from the Eastern Communication Association.
Summary
This text focuses on how messages are produced in the various media, and shows how criticism changes when the medium of transmission is taken into account.
