STS 7003

Special Topic 3: Issues in the Cultural History of Technology

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2018-2019 Catalog.

The special topic for this semester's seminar is The History of Digitalization.  We will read mostly secondary sources on the transition from analog to digital forms of electronic media, focusing on the United States.   We begin with the (digital) telegraph system of the 19th century as a reminder that the historical arc we are studying ran from digital to analog to digital (not simply analog to digital).  We then consider the analog telephone system and analog computing of the early to mid-20th century, before spending the remainder of the course on the digitization of communications, computation, and the media from World War II to the present.  We consider the social, cultural, political, and economic, aspects of the construction and use of these technologies.

When Offered Fall.

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