COMM 180Survey of Electronic Media and Telecommunications

3 credits · Communications · Penn State

COMM 180 Survey of Electronic Media and Telecommunications (3) (GS)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. This course is an introduction to electronic communications (telecommunications) and their consequences for society and the economy. Until a few years ago, this primarily meant over-the-air television, radio and cable TV, and a dial-up telephone. Increasingly, however, the field has expanded to include a wide variety of broadcast, wire-based and wireless forms of video, data and voice communications. The rapid convergence of previously disparate industries and services, especially the melding of television, telephone and Internet systems, will be a dominant theme in the course. At the same time, a global system of electronic communications has been steadily evolving. This class is also about the dynamics of that changing system; it is about the origins of the telecommunications system, and its future. To better understand these developments, we will examine powerful interacting forces that are shaping the world of information by drawing on history, economics, technology studies, politics, and culture.While the course is intended primarily for Telecommunications majors planning careers in these fields, all students will benefit from the course by learning to critically analyze media structures and programming and to better appreciate the importance of ICTs (Information, Communication and Technology) in their lives. This course serves both as an introductory core course for students in the Telecommunications major and as a broad social science course for students in other departments across the university. For students within the Telecommunications major, the course introduces the key terminology, concepts and issues in the field as well as the range of career options within the telecommunications industries. For students outside the major, this course provides a grounding in the current shirt from an industrial society to an information society in which electronic media play a pervasive role in our personal, social, economic, and political lives.