Welcome in week 2 of our MOOC.
I hope you've enjoyed our format. I also hope you've done some of the self-evaluation tests
that we made available and checked out the further readings section in the online portal.
Since we only discuss most theories very briefly, this is a good chance to explore them further.
Also, visit the forum. I'll often help out by posting answers to recurring questions here.
And let us know what you think of our MOOC.
All feedback is welcome.
This week we’re going to talk about the history of communication science
and I’d like to stress that last part.
Because we’re going to talk about when people started talking
and especially writing about communication.
So even though we could talk for hours about the presumed communication methods of
prehistoric man and ancient civilizations after that,
about the earliest forms of communication, theories on the development of language,
the introduction of mediated communication,
through symbolism in rock art and figurines and such,
we are not going to do so.
We are not going to discuss the oldest musical instruments or the first writing we’ve found,
nor the power of communication through architecture and useable items like coins.
Why?
Because we have no record that these civilizations thought
about communication on a meta level
and constructed theories about it’s existence or use.
Instead we’re going to start our journey here in Ancient Greece.
Because the writings of the Ancient Greeks and after that the Romans
are the oldest books about our topic to survive.
After covering the earliest Communication Science of the Greeks and Romans
we’ll talk about Medieval times.
A time when there was little to no Communication Science.
Then we'll discuss the printing revolution and the Renaissance of our field.
We’ll end this week's MOOC with the nineteenth century,
industrialization, political change and the changing communication landscape.
Next week we’ll continue with twentieth century communication theory.