Beginning in the late 19th century and accelerating in the 20th century, a series of technological innovations brought about the age of mass media: national newspapers, radio stations, TV networks, and now websites and social media. These new forms of media have transformed our relation to the world and altered the course of human civilization.
This three-part course explores those changes in their historical context, from the development of mass media technologies to the consolidation of the media oligopoly to the fracturing of narratives that has taken place with the rise of the Internet. Together, we will examine how the mass media and the industry that has grown up around it has been engineered to produce certain effects in the population and where these technologies are directing us in the 21st century.
