Course Catalogue

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This course examines the evolving forms and genres of communication across history and geography, beginning with inscriptions on stone and wax tablets and ending with file transfers and email. Combining current research in media and information studies with materialist approaches to bureaucracy and 'paperwork', we will consider how the development of new systems and technologies for storing, organizing and transmitting information changes communication landscapes, affording new possibilities for both controlling and disrupting how we communicate across national boundaries. Our aim throughout the course will be apply insights from analysing past and current media transformations to enable us to shape the future of global communication.

10x 2hr timetabled on-campus seminar

This is one of the MSc options in Communications and may not run every year. The options that are running this session are available on MyCampus.

Standard entry to Masters at College level.

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The standard assessments for this course are: 

■ 10 minute presentation, typically as part of a group project (50%) 

■ 1000-word essay (25%) 

■ 1000-word learning journal (25%) 

If required, for instance where a disability prevents a student from undertaking a specific method of assessment, the following alternatives are available: 

■ Recorded presentation or one-to-one presentation / discussion/Q&A with staff (where presentation would normally be in class) as alternative to presentation. 

■ There are no alternatives to the 1000- word Essay, but flexible deadlines can be offered as reasonable adjustment (Students should follow the usual process for extensions). 

■ There are no alternatives to the 1000-word learning journal, but flexible deadlines can be offered as reasonable adjustment (Students should follow the usual process for extensions). 

Further reasonable adjustments may be provided where necessary. Students are encouraged to consult with the course convenor.  

This course aims to:

•  introduce the dominant forms and genres of communication and information management in the past and today

• identify how and why the material forms of communication have changed over time 

• isolate the logistical and ideological effects of communication genres within specific organizations and communities

•  enable critical reflection on how forms and genres of communication structure thought and behaviour

By the end of this course, students will be able to: 

• understand the evolution of communication genres in relation to structures of information management more broadly

• analyse how the material forms of communication shape institutional, national and multinational communication networks

• make historically informed arguments about the forms of modern communication media

• work collaboratively to propose innovative forms of communication that support a more equitable vision of global communication