COMM 1120B Development of Mass Communication

2022-2023 First Term

School of Journalism and Communication
The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Time and Place: Thursday 10:30 – 13:15 YIA 505

Instructor: FANG Kecheng 方可成

kfang@cuhk.edu.hk NAH 203
Office Hours: Thursday 15:00 – 16:30

Teaching Assistants:
YANG Yu (Charles) 楊昱 charles7yangyu@link.cuhk.edu.hk
WEI Longhan 韋龍頷 longhan@link.cuhk.edu.hk

Course Description

The aim of the course is to help you understand the development of mass communication and to provide
you with the tools to critically think about why we have the media that we have now. We will examine
not only the impact of the technological development of mass communication on society, but also how,
in turn, political, economic and cultural factors influence, resist and come to terms with the development
of mass communication.

Expected Learning Outcomes

After taking the course, students will be able to:

1) develop a critical understanding of the history of mass communication;
2) use theories and critical thinking skills to analyze both existing and new media technologies;
3) reflect on the relationship between technology and society.

Rules and Expectations

There are a few rules so that we all know what to expect from each other in order to have a good
experience from this class.

Be honest: Please be aware of the University policy and regulations on honesty in academic work, and to
the disciplinary guidelines and procedures applicable to breaches of such policy and regulations. Details
may be found at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty/. The assignments should be
submitted to Veriguide before being graded.

Check Blackboard and your email: You are responsible to regularly check the updates, announcements,
and material uploads to Blackboard, as it is the primary learning platform for this course. We will send
out emails to you through Blackboard when there are class announcements, and related issues. It is your
responsibility to check your email regularly.

Pay attention to me and to each other: I expect you to pay attention to me and to each other during class.
Please put away your phone during the class. You are allowed to use a laptop for note taking, but please
DO NOT Facebook or WeChat or do any other things not related to the class.

1
Assessment Scheme

Assessment Scheme Description Weight

Presentation and Active participation in classroom, including 20 %
Participation interactions with the professor during the
lectures, as well as presentation and discussions
in tutorial sessions.
Two short essays Two pieces of 500-700 word essays. Details to 50 %
be announced later in the semester.
Exam A take-home, open-book exam will be held 30 %
during the weekend after our final class. I will
review the materials we discussed in the
readings, the lectures and the tutorial sessions
before the exam.

Tutorial Sessions

Starting from the fourth week, we will have breakout tutorial sessions. You will be assigned to one of
five sessions lead by the professor and two TAs respectively. The tutorial sessions will be held during
the last 45 minutes of class time (12:30-13:15) or before class (9:30-10:15) in separate classrooms. One
or two students will be giving short presentations (10-15 minutes) based on readings for each week’s
session. All students will join the discussion.

Details of session assignment and presentation guidelines will be announced during the third week.

Grade Descriptors

Grade Criteria / standard / different levels of attainment of the desired learning outcomes
A Outstanding performance on all learning outcomes.
A- Generally outstanding performance on all (or almost all) learning outcomes.
B Substantial performance on all learning outcomes, OR high performance on some learning
outcomes which compensates for less satisfactory performance on others, resulting in
overall substantial performance.
C Satisfactory performance on the majority of learning outcomes, possibly with a few
weaknesses.
D Barely satisfactory performance on a number of learning outcomes
F Unsatisfactory performance on a number of learning outcomes, OR failure to meet
specified assessment requirements.
(sub-grades including B+, B-, C+, C- will still be used.)

Schedule and Assigned Reading

Electronic copies of the articles will be available online. Please do the readings before coming to class,
and to be prepared to discuss them during the tutorial session.

2
Readings with * are optional.

Week Date Topic Reading Material

1 Sep 8 Introduction to the
Course: How to
Understand Media,
Technology, and History
2 Sep The Printing Revolution Kovarik, B. (2016). The Divine Art. In Revolutions in
15 Communication, Bloomsbury, 27-53.
3 Sep Media and Public Sphere Habermas, J. (1991): “The public sphere”. In Rethinking
22 popular culture, University of California Press, 398-
📃📃 First essay details 404.
announced
4 Sep Electricity and the Wired Kovarik, B. (2016). The First Electronic Revolution:
29 World Telegraph and Telephone. In Revolutions in
Communication, Bloomsbury, 255-274.
Standage, T. (2011). “Telegraphy – The Victorian Internet”.
In Communications in History: Technology,
Culture, Society, Pearson, 105-110.
* Carey, J. W. (1983). Technology and ideology: The case
of the telegraph. Prospects, 8, 303-325.
5 Oct 6 Photography and Kovarik, B. (2016). Photography: Giving Vision to History.
Empathy In Revolutions in Communication, Bloomsbury,
151-180.
📃📃 First essay due * Sontag, S. (1977). In Plato's Cave. In On
Photography. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 3-26.
6 Oct Advertising, Public Kovarik, B. (2016). Advertising, Public Relations, and the
13 Relations, and Consumer Crafted Image. In Revolutions in Communication,
Culture Bloomsbury, 217-238.
7 Oct Radio and the Wireless Peters, J. D. (2011). “The Public Voice of Radio”. In
20 World Communications in History: Technology, Culture,
Society, Pearson, 190-193.
8 Oct Television and Postman, N. (1985). Amusing Ourselves to Death. ETC: A
27 Entertainment Review of General Semantics, 42(1), 13-18.

📃📃 Second essay details

announced
9 Nov 3 Early Days of the Internet Rothstein, E. (2006). Connections: A crunchy-granola path
from macramé and LSD to Wikipedia and Google.
The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/arts/25conn.h
tml.
* Turner, F. (2010). From counterculture to cyberculture:
Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the
rise of digital utopianism. University of Chicago
Press.
10 Nov Platforms and Algorithms Kolbert, E. (2017). Who Owns the Internet?. The New
10 Yorker.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/28/

3
 who-owns-the-internet.
* Van Dijck, J. (2013). The culture of connectivity: A
critical history of social media. Oxford University
Press.
11 Nov Big Data and Zuckerman, E. (2014). The Internet’s Original Sin. The
17 Surveillance Atlantic,
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/201
📃📃 Second essay due 4/08/advertising-is-the-internets-original-
sin/376041/.
Hao, K. & Hernández, A. P. (2022). How the AI industry
profits from catastrophe. MIT Technology Review,
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/20/105
0392/ai-industry-appen-scale-data-labels/.
* Metz, C. (2019). Facial Recognition Tech Is Growing
Stronger, Thanks to Your Face. The New York
Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/13/technology/da
tabases-faces-facial-recognition-technology.html.
12 Nov
No Class - 91st Congregation for Conferment of Degrees
24
13 Dec 1 The Future of Mukherjee, S. (2017). The Future of Humans? One
Communication and Forecaster Calls for Obsolescence. The New York
Humanity Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/books/review
/yuval-noah-harari-homo-deus.html.
Dec
Take-home exam
3-4
End of term.
Happy Winter Break!