COMM 270  COMMUNICATION IN MARKETPLACE AND MEDIA

STUDY GUIDE FOR FIRST EXAM

 

Following are topics you should know for the first exam.  You are expected to know not only the information discussed in class on each specific topic, but also the information appearing in the textbook related to that topic.  The exam is not just about memorizing but understanding. 

 

 

Unit 1: Mass Communication

 

Historical eras of media and communication

Characteristics of oral and written communication

Social and cultural changes with advent of mass media

Characteristics of the development of the telegraph

Characteristics of electronic and digital communication

Components of the linear model of communication

Cultural approach to communication

Mass media and public perception

Concerns about media today

Criticisms of popular culture

Characteristics of “culture as map” model

Values of postmodern culture

Steps in the critical process/perspective on mass media

 

 

Unit 2: Information and New Technology

 

Three stages of media innovations

Development stage of Internet

Entrepreneurial stage of Internet

Three distinctive innovations of Internet

Convergence: effects of Internet on traditional media

Three key developments that allow media convergence

New storage media

Five major mapping systems of Internet

Promises of Internet for democracy

Concerns about Internet and democracy

 

 

Unit 3: Sound recording and popular music

 

Early sound recording technology

Forms of recording

The rise of radio

The rise of pop music

The rise of rock and roll

Battles and scandals in the music industry

Folk rock and Sixties counterculture

Alternative sounds

Rap and mainstream culture

Major recording labels

Making a recording

 

 

Unit 4: Radio

 

Technological inventions

Purpose of forming RCA

First commercial stations

Origins and characteristics of NBC

Radio Act of 1927

Formats of Golden Age of radio

How radio influenced television

How radio re-invented itself in television age

New technologies of radio—transistor and FM

Commercial radio today