Study guide and quiz notes  COMM / MSTD 300 Media History
FIRST WEEK
Studying History	WHO were:	Ecclesiasticus, Herodotus, Thucydides, Gibbon, Santayana, Acton, McLuhan
	WHO said:	"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." "We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future."
	HOW does the study of history change over time?	How are Bankroft and Acton different from Zinn and Eisenstadt?
	What:	What is the difference between Heroditus and Thucydides in their basic approach to history?
Stephens Chs 1 - 2	Reading:	Is there a "need" for news? Is it something in human psychology? What examples does Stevens use to support this claim?
	Reading:	What's the difference between a messenger, a crier and a minstrel? T-F -- Stevens argues thatin traditional oral cultures, each storyteller is free to embelish the story. Literate cultures are bound more closely to the original
SECOND WEEK
Literacy / Twilight of the Books
	Basic comprehension:	Is personal spending on books and other printed literature increasing or decreating these days? Is time spent reading increasing or decreasing?Do Americans read less than others? Do TV watchers read less than others?Do older people read more? What was different about the Greek alphabet, compared to the Egyptian or Sumerian or Chinese writing systems?What was mimesis ? How different is the way people in an oral culture think?How did Ong describe the oral culture mind-set? What is the role of stereotype and cliche? What does this mean? "Only in a literate culture [does] the past’s inconsistencies have to be accounted for, a process that encourages skepticism and forces history to diverge from myth"
	Meaning:	What is the physiological "secret" at the heart of reading? . Why would it matter? Does Craig argue that our ability to read is declining? McLuhan said TV and film were creating a secondary oral culture. What What might we lose if we lose reading?
Stephens Chs 3 - 4	Reading:	What social institutions were (and still are) centers for local community news? How were these examples of what is today called "narrowcasting" ? How did Lloyds of London get its start? Stephens sees a change in the relative importance of spoken news to an increasingly important mass media by the changes in newspaper titles. How so? (p. 37) How did news of a divorce differ in a traditional oral culture and the written account given by Cicero? How do literate and oral cultures differ? Was Thucydides history of the Peleponnesian Wars considered news?
THIRD WEEK
Media Technology	WHAT:	What are the important characteristics of media technology? What are examples of durable media? What are examples of flexible media?
	HOW:	Aside from a few letter differences, what is the difference between the Greek and Roman alphabet? (Hint: Look for the serifs). Where does the word paper come from? When and where was the first paper made? How is paper made?
	WHAT:	What was the difference in cost between a hand-lettered Bible and a printed Bible in Venice in 1500? What is the difference between hot type and cold type? What is a Linotype machine? When and where do we find the oldest printed image? What are some craft printing anachronisms still found in the language? Which is older -- letterpress or offset printing? What is the difference between engraving, letterpress and offset printing ?
Stephens Ch 5	Reading:	What was the Acta Diurna? What was the Tipao? How different were the news systems of ancient China and Rome ? Why does Stephens say "Authorities make poor journalists." ? What were the first news systems in Europe? How important were they to business?
Czitrom Ch 6 (skipping ahead)	Reading:	Where were Innis and McLuhan from? How did that influence them? What was Innis' insight into communication and staples? What bias did Innis see in durable media versus flexible media? What is hot and cold media according to McLuhan? Explain the meaning of "the medium is the message"
FOURTH WEEK
English and French Enlightenment	HOW:	* How could the framers of the Constitution hold that people were "endowed by their Creator with unalienable Rights" -- What did people have an inherent love for that led the framers to think this? * How and why did religious persecution spur calls for tolerance in England and North America? What was a "Protestant"? What was the "Reformation?" What was the "Inquisition?"
	WHO were:	* Voltaire and Locke (most important figures regarding freedom of expression) * Milton, Hume, Mill (in England), Rousseau, Montesque (France) Jefferson (America) ˆ Whose idea was a three-part system of government? • Whose idea was the social contract with the government existing to protect life, libery and property? • Whose idea was the marketplace of ideas?
	WHAT	* What is Guy Fawkes Day? * Was Milton talking about in Aeropagetica? * What were the Cato letters? * What was the cause and the outcome of the John Peter Zenger trial?
Stephens Ch 6 - 8	Reading:	* What did Gutenberg really invent? * What was different about how Europeans learned about the explorations of the Vikings and Columbus? * How did press licensing and censorship work in England? * How did early printers distort news? Why did they fear controversy? * What was a news ballad? * What are examples of gossip, crime news, sensationalism, moralizing, the supernatural, and popular news in the early years of newspapers?
FIFTH WEEK
Revolutionary Roots Also American Revolution and US Constitution	Online Reading:	* What state's constitution contained the ideas of the US Bill of Rights in its 1776 constitution? • What is the first freedom, the one freedom of paramount importance to thinkers from Milton to Jefferson? (Political speech? or Religious freedom?) * What person was involved in creating the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776, the US Bill of Rights 1791 and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789? * What person was involved in creating the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776, the US Bill of Rights 1791 and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789? * Why did Congress pass the Alien and Sedition Act, given that the ink was barely dry on the First Amendment? What were they afraid of? * How did Jefferson and Madison respond to the Alien & Sedition Acts? How does this illustrate the law of unintended consequences?
SIXTH WEEK
Czitrom Ch 1 Telegraph		* Why does Czitrom call the telegraph the first breakthrough into modern communication? * What was a "telegraph" before the 1830s? * Who was Samuel Morse and what was his real contribution to telegraphy? * Who did Morse want to own the telegraph system? * How did people react to the telegraph? * Why was Henry David Thoreau skeptical about the telegraph? * Why does Czitrom say that the telegraph gave rise to modern ideas about news and systems of news gathering? • How did the telegraph help create the Associated Press? * Why did the telegraph "equalize" provincial newspapers with metropolitan newspapers? * What was Western Union and how did it operate with the Associated Press as a monopoly? * Did Western Union and the AP live up to the promise of the telegraph, in Czitrom's view?
Stephens Chs 11 - 12 (yes we skipped Chs 9 and 10).		* What was the first newspaper in the English colonies? How long did it last? * Who was: Daniel Defoe,John Peter Zenger, Elizabeth Timothy, Benjamin Franklin * What was the role of newspapers in the AmericanRevolution? How did they increasingly express the unity of the new country? * Why did Sam and John Adams see newspapers as "political engines"? * Who said: "The press can not only strike while the iron is hot, it can heat the iron by striking." * How did the absence of a legitimate press to cover events and dissent contribute to the French Revolution? How did that apply in particular to the storming of the Bastille? * What was a libelle in pre-revolutionary France? * What was Jefferson's attitude towards a free press as US president? * How did America turn back from the Sedition Act? * What did Alexis de Tocqueville say about the role of newspapers after his 1830 visit to new American republic
		* What are the "two truths" of newspaper economics? * How much did newspapers tend to cost before the penny press? * What was the "penny press"? How did it differ from the elite press? * How was it different from the "pauper press" in England? Why was the class difference important in this case? What did Bulwer-Lytton mean when he said that cheap knowledge was a better polital agent than costly punishment? * Who were Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst? * Who were Ida Tarbell and Frederick Douglass?
Class readings		* What was the Maryland Toleration Act ? How would John Locke have reacted to it? ª What were the Cato Letters? * What happened in the trial of John Peter Zenger? * What were the Silence Dogood and Polly Baker hoaxes? * How accurate was Paul Revere's portrait of the Boston Massacre? * How did Samuel Adams see the rights of the colonists?
SEVENTH WEEK
Lecture notes		* What are the four communciations revolutions? (writing, printing, electronic, digital) * What were Lippmann's four stages of the press? (totalitarian, partisan, commercial, and organized intelligence). * Who were Horace Greeley (NY Tribune) and James Gordon Bennett (NY Herald) ? Which paper was oriented towards news reporting and which towards essays and editorials? * What was the Moon Hoax? • What were some of the technological advances of the 1800s media? * What social changes accompanied the technical changes? * What was manifest destiny? * How did the telegraph change reporting? (See William Howard Russell in the War reporting section in readings)
EIGHTH WEEK
Mid Term March 5		Followed by Spring Break
TENTH and ELEVENTH WEEKS March 17, March 24
Progressives and Muckraking	who were	Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst, Samuel Hopkins Adams, Ida Tarbell, Ida Baker Wells Barnett
Advertising	what was	A full service agency, a patent medicine contract, the reason for the Collier-Post libel suit, the reason for the establishment of the FDA and the FTC
Citizen Hearst and Orson Wells		Why was Wells famous in 1938? What kind of Hollywood contract did he get? What did Hearst do that brought in so much money? Why was he powerful? What was Hearst's relationship with Marion Davies? How did the film Citizen Kane ruin both Hearst and Wells?
TWELFTH and THIRTEENTH WEEKS
History of Cinema		Eadweard Muybridge, George Eastman, Thomas Edison, George Melies, Charlie Chaplin, Mutual Film v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, Al Jolson, Lani Riefenstahl, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, US v. Paramount Pictures,
History of Cinema	Czitrom Ch 2	How did the defenders of "culture" see the introduction of cinema? Why did cinema audiences boom from 1905 - 1918? Why did reformers want regulation of cinema? Was that legally possible? If so, how did it come about?
History of Radio & TV		Guglielmo Marconi, Lee de Forest, David Sarnoff, Philo T. Farnsworth, Federal Radio Commission, Edward R. Murrow, ads for cigarettes and cigars banned on television, Communications Act of 1996
History of Radio & TV	Czitrom Ch 3 Stephens Ch 15	Was radio "broadcasting" the first commercial use of radio? During which decades between the 1920s and the 1960s was music the dominant form of radio programming? Why did they call radio the national "hearth?" How did FDR's use of radio differ from predecessors? What was the influence of television on the 1952 and 1960 elections?
FOURTEENTH and FIFTEENTH WEEKS
Civil Rights coverage	Ralph McGill film	Why did they call McGill the conscience of the South? What was his middle-of-the-road argument against racism? How did he help King after the Nobel Prize nomination? They said McGill helped Atlanta become "the city too busy to ___"?
History of Computing	Stevens Ch 16	Charles Babbage, Herman Hollerith, Grace Hopper, ENIAC, transistor, IBM, Gordon Moore (Moore's Law), Three cultures of computing (Watson, Gates, Jobs), Killer applications, original Xerox PARC vision for the PC (3 things),