From semaphore to the silicon chip, advances in communication technology have re-shaped the public's access to and understanding of conflict. This unit will examine how the advent of new communications technology - the mass circulation newspaper, the telegraph, photography, the newsreel, radio, television, cable television, the internet and the mobile telephone - has re-framed the public's perceptions of and responses to war. Though an analysis of wars from the Crimea to Afghanistan it will analyse how, in an effort to monopolise its power or contain its effects, every war has, in part, been a battle for control over new communications technology. -- Course Website
Instructor: Associate Professor Kevin Foster
Prerequisites: An approved first year sequence
