Revolutions in Communication is primarily intended as a main textbook for communications students who need to understand the history of the various communication disciplines, as recommended by accrediting organizations like ACEJMC and NCA. However, it may also be used in any type of history class as a main or supplementary textbook. It may also be useful in introductory courses for communication, information science and computer science.
Information about desk / exam copies and class adoptions is available from Bloomsbury publishers.
Facilitating pedagogy
Instructors who adopt Revolutions in Communication for their history classes will be able to access quiz and test banks in MS Word and Desire to Learn formats by emailing Bill Kovarik (bill.kovarik at gmail.com)
Professional Resources
Professional resources in media history are listed on the front page of this site, but the following are especially valuable for teachers and scholars:
- Journalism History (T & F journal)
- The Journalism History podcast
- Media History (T & F journal)
- Journal of 20th Century Media History (Marshall University)
- History of Media Studies — Reaches “beyond the North American and Western European lens of much existing literature.” Also available in Spanish.
- Feminist Media Histories (Univ. of California Press)
- Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television (T & F journal)
Additional notes
The idea behind the combination book and web site was inspired by Vannevar Bush, who described the uses of a communications network in his famous 1946 “Memex” article.
… The historian, with a vast chronological account of a people, parallels it with a skip trail which stops only on the salient items, and can follow at any time contemporary trails which lead him all over civilization at a particular epoch. There is a new profession of trail blazers, those who find delight in the task of establishing useful trails through the enormous mass of the common record. The inheritance from the master [teacher] becomes, not only his additions to the world’s record, but for his disciples, the entire scaffolding by which they were erected.
One of the problems with teaching media history is that the structure of existing books tends to be heavily skewed toward transmitting the values of the media professions (particularly journalism) and is often focused only in one nation. The idea of this book and web site is to provide a larger scaffolding for new paths through the common record.
About teaching history
- “Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct” (2023), American Historical Association. “History is the never-ending process whereby people seek to understand the past and its many meanings. The institutional and intellectual forms of history’s dialogue with the past have changed enormously over time, but the dialogue itself has been part of the human experience for millennia”
- Marion Brandy, The Right Way to Teach History, Washington Post, Sept. 25, 2013.