480.625 History of Communication Technology

The field of communication is increasingly defined by the technologies that make communications possible. Yet technology is "path dependent": today's devices and systems have certain characteristics because the technologies they evolved from had similar characteristics, and tomorrow's devices will evolve from today's technologies. Thus, if we want to know where technology is headed, we need to understand where it's been. Through lectures, readings, and discussions, the course examines the evolution of several communications technologies. Governments have habitually served as the Influencers-in-Chief of communications technologies, and the course will pay particular attention to the role of government (as funder of R&D, as First Buyer of new technologies, through enabling legislation, and through regulation and oversight), as well as the role of politics, in shaping technologies such as broadcasting, satellite, wireless, and the internet. Individual research projects will enable each student to explore a topic of particular interest.

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