Communication Ecology

Professor: Huei-Sheng F. Shen

Course Purposes
The purposes of this course are to give social phenomena or to be specific, or/and communication phenomena a reasonable explanation.

For this purpose, we will try to understand how and/or why the communication environment has changed over time. Of course, the material covered also including western communication environment and communication environment in Asia or in Taiwan particularly.

Beyond that, we will also try to
1. Ask new questions or reexamine what we used to ask.

2. Find new materials or historical forces (such as WTO, APEC, 911 etc.)

3. Find new mechanism to solve old questions or to dig a new one.

Text Books
Briggs, A & Burke, P. A Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet. Malden, Ma: Polity Press. 2005.

Epstein, Barbara. Political Protest and Cultural Revolution: Nonviolent Direct Action in the 1970s and 1980s, University of California Press, 1991.

Holmes, D. Communication Theory: Media, Technology and Society. London: Sage, 2005.

McQuail, D. McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory. 5th ed. London: Sage, 2005.

McQuail, D., Golding, P.,& Bens, E. eds. Communication Theory and Research: An EJC Anthology. London: Sage, 2005.

McPhail, T. Global Communication: Theories, Stakeholders, and Trend. 2nd ed. Malden, MA. : Blackwell Publishing, 2006

Potter, J. W. Media Literacy 3rd ed. London: Sage, 2005.

Swain, Harriet. Ed. Big Questions in History. New York: Vintage Books, 2005