Includes bibliographical references and index.

Media of early civilization. The earliest precursors of writing / De nise Schmandt-Besserat -- Media in ancient civilization / Harold Innis -- Civilization without writing : the Incas and the Quipu / Marcia Asch er and Robert Ascher -- The origins of writing / Andrew Robinson -- The tradition of Western literacy. The Greek legacy / Eric Havelock -- Wri ting and the alphabet effect / Robert K. Logan -- Orality, literacy, an d modern media / Walter Ong -- Communication and faith in the Middle Ag es / James Burke and Robert Ornstein -- The print revolution. Paper and block printing : from China to Europe / Thomas F. Carter -- The invent ion of printing / Lewis Mumford -- Aspects of the printing revolution / Elizabeth Eisenstein -- Early modern literacies / Harvey J. Graff -- T he trade in news / John B. Thompson -- Electricity creates the wired wo rld. Telegraphy : the Victorian Internet / Tom Standage -- The new jour nalism / Michael Schudson -- The telephone takes command / Claude S. Fi sher -- Time, space, and the telegraph / James W. Carey -- Image techno logies and the emergence of mass society. Dream worlds of consumption / Rosalynd Williams -- Early photojournalism / Ulrich Keller -- Inscribi ng sound / Lisa Gitelman -- The making of the phonograph / Jonathan Ste rne -- Early motion pictures / Daniel Czitrom -- Movies talk / Scott Ey man -- Mass media and the star system / Jib Fowles -- Radio days. Wirel ess world / Stephen Kern -- The public voice of radio / John Durham Pet ers -- Early radio / Susan J. Douglas -- The golden age of programming / Christopher Sterling and John M. Kittross -- Radio voices / Michele H ilmes -- Radio in the television age / Peter Fornatale and Joshua E. Mi lls -- TV times. Television begins / William Boddy -- The new languages / Edmund Carpenter -- Making room for TV / Lynn Spigel -- Television t ransforms the news / Mitchell Stephens -- Two cultures : television ver sus print / Neil Postman and Camille Paglia -- TV in the net-age / Henr y Jenkins -- New media and old in the information age. The control revo lution / James Beniger -- How media became new / Lev Manovich -- Popula rizing the Internet / Janet Abbate -- The World Wide Web / Jay David Bo lter and Richard Grusin -- A mobile network society / Manuel Castells, [et al.].