Revolutions in Communication: Media History from Gutenberg to the Digital Age

by Bill Kovarik

Overview

Revolutions in Communication, now in its 3rd edition, explores printing, imaging, electronic and digital media history within a framework of technological change and social impacts.

Using key figures in history to benchmark the chronology of technical innovation, Kovarik's scholarship narrates the story of revolutions in printing, electronic communication and digital information, while drawing parallels between the past and present. This edition builds on the success of the previous two editions as a leading media history textbook.

The 3rd edition includes:

- Digital media technology, impacts and expectations that have changed since 2015.
- Updated and additional information that has become recently available, including: declassified histories of super-computers, the US news media's record on civil rights, Gutenberg's printing experiments in the 1440s, the role of the 1796 invention of lithography and improving the printing and culture of music.
- A sharper international focus and effort to avoid the impression that Europe is more or less at the center of mass media history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798765107171
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	02/06/2025
Edition description:	3rd ed.
Pages:	496
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Bill Kovarik, Ph.D. is a Professor of Communication at Radford University, USA. His previous books include Web Design for the Mass Media (2001) and Mass Media and Environmental Conflict (1997).

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Printing
2. Industrial Publishing
3. The Press
4. Photography
5. Cinema
6. Advertising and PR
7. Telephone and Telegraph
8. Radio
9. Television and Satellites
10. Computers
11. Digital Networks
12. Global Culture

Appendix A
Appendix B
Index

Editorial Reviews

Revolutions in Communication does what few introductory media textbooks can-it captures and engages the attention of undergraduate students through savvy exploration of the major milestones in media history and the dramatic curves in the road that some navigated, and others neglected. It is the story of circumventing technologies bypassing legal and institutional barriers and information monopolies to bring media content to mass audiences for the first time at signal moments in human history. The creativity and ingenuity of technological discovery appear alongside media's darker uses by monopolists and propagandists. All are meticulously set in their industrial and legal contexts, often roiling with contention sparking social and political transformation-from the Protestant Reformation to the digital revolution-that would forever change the world.” —David Dowling, Professor, School of Jourbanalism and Mass Communication, University of Iowa, USA

From the Publisher

As an historian of both technology and the media, Bill Kovarik has made a unique contribution to our understanding of communication history. He explains how the print, visual, electronic, and digital technological revolutions have shaped communication. Equally important, he shows that that new technologies have been invented to overcome the limitations of existing media. This is fascinating reading, both for communication scholars and historians.

James E. Grunig

Kovarik has the most complete understanding of media technology among journalism historians working today. It is a very interesting and useful work.

Mark Neuzil

I could almost imagine myself standing next to William Caxton as the newly inked printed pages of the Canterbury Tales began to accumulate on the table next to his printing machine. Bill Kovarik's latest work on the history of the media has brought together under one academic roof the role of technology and how it has shaped our way of life and our world. He deserves full credit for the way his words take on both colour and a sense of adventure. This work belongs on the book shelves of any university or college program in which the study of technology and its companion media has a central focus. Let it be said that Kovarik's readers will never suffer a dull moment in this beautifully tailored work as he walks through some of the most important history of the age from the iPad to the cell phone to the Internet.

David R. Spencer

A stunning work of research, it conveys intellectual excitement and stimulates creative thinking about the social construction of communication.

Maurine H. Beasley