Download - Media history introduction_and_the_book
Media History
Session One:Introduction and the Book
What is this course?
What is this course?
The study of media and their cultural impact
What is this course?
The aesthetic development of media texts
What is this course?
The reasons for media transformations
Reasons for media transformations
AestheticCulturalIndustrialTechnological
What will I learn?
What will I learn?
Unknown histories of the media
What will I learn?
Media's ubiquitous and fundamental role for our lives
What will I learn?
How to relate one media text to its aesthetic, cultural, industrial and
technological context
What the #%&! is a media text?
BookFilmTelevision seriesNewspaperComic bookMagazineMusic albumWebsitePhotographComputer game
Any aesthetic expression in material form
Exam!
Exam
Written assignment, maximum of six pages
Exam
Deadline April 28th, 10am to Evy
Exam
Deadline April 28th, 10am to Evy
Exam
You choose a media text which you want to analyze, within the
media we discuss in class
Exam
What makes a good exam paper?
What makes a good exam paper?
Write the full six pages
What makes a good exam paper?
Situate the media text historically
What makes a good exam paper?
Consider How is the text's aesthetics representative of its
historical context?
What makes a good exam paper?
Consider the text's cultural impact
What makes a good exam paper?
What technological changes were part of this media text's
production?
What are media?
What is a dominant medium?
Discuss for five minutes what our contemporary dominant
medium might be
Can we divide earlier periods by their dominant medium?
Media history as explanation
Media history as explanation
Chronology
Media history as explanation
Causality
Media history as explanation
Individual causes ('Great Men')
Media history as explanation
Influence
Media history as explanation
Intertextuality
Media history as explanation
Periods
Media history as explanation
Significance
Media history as explanation
Typicality
Media history as explanation
All of these change as history changes, as focus changes, as
trends develop, and according to individual emphases.
The Book as Dominant Medium
The book as dominant medium
The Catholic Church's inability to silence Martin Luther is
democratizing
The book as dominant medium
Information monopoly is broken
The book as dominant medium
With the rise of printing, copyright is invented.
Why?
The book as dominant medium
Copyright is established by law in England in 1662
The book as dominant medium
Writers may own content but not the physical form of the book
The book as dominant medium
Book copyright becomes the basis for all other forms of copyright
The book as dominant medium
Book copyright becomes the basis for all other forms of copyright
The book as dominant medium
The printing press standardizes language
The book as dominant medium
The printing press allows critical public debates
Book Culture
Book culture
Early novels are regarded as dangerous and invasive, since women read novels instead of
doing household chores
Book culture
Female authors (George Elliot) had to write under male pseudonyms
Book culture
Novels were serialized in literary magazines; many of Charles
Dickens' novels were published this way
Book culture
With the invention of the typewriter, writing changed and handwriting
became personal
Book culture
As reading becomes a common skill, literature becomes hugely
popular
Book culture
Dime novels became popular entertainment and eventually trash
literature
Book culture
Book culture develops parallel with other media (radio, film and
eventually television) but begins to lose ground
Literary Culture
Literary culture
The literary field become specialized
Literary culture
Awards, writers' guilds and similar arrangements are created
Literary culture
The death of the novel is pronounced several times over
Literary culture
Writers begin to experiment with typography, colors and whitespace
Literary culture
Literary culture becomes unusual
Literary culture
More books are produced than ever before, but there are fewer
readers than ever before
Legacy of the Book
Legacy of the book
Birth of nations
Legacy of the book
Birth of languages
Legacy of the book
Rise of the public sphere
Legacy of the book
Books establish linearity, authority and narrative
Suggestions
Suggestions
Laurence Sterne, The Life and Times of Tristram Shandy, GentlemanMark Z. Danielewski, House of LeavesJonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly CloseSteven Hall, The Raw Shark Texts