Revolutions in Communication
Rhetoric and Communications · 3 hrs Lecture
Offered: Fall and Winter Both
RHET-2246 prerequisites
We couldn't read this course's prerequisites into a chain. The wording is under “Requisite courses” below.
Where RHET-2246 counts
Counts toward 3 more as one option among several, not as a course you must take:
Read from the departments' own calendar pages, where 50 of 208 programs are only partly machine-readable, so treat these as a minimum rather than the full list. Confirm with an academic advisor.
Description
This course provides students with an historical overview of communication, focusing particularly on those periods in which human relations were dramatically influenced by a shift from one communicative medium to another. After briefly considering the early use of pictorial symbols, the emergence of language, and the development of writing, the course examines some of the profound social changes effected in the western world by the fifteenth century invention of the printing press. Finally, we focus on the revolutionary impact of twentieth century communicative technologies: radio, telephone and then the computer and the Internet, the effects of which are so wide-ranging that we have only begun to assess them.
Requisite courses
Any section of Academic Writing or exemption from the writing requirement and completion of 24 credit hours [prerequisite(s)].
From the 2026-27 undergraduate calendar. Always verify details on WebAdvisor or with an academic advisor before registering.