The rise of the Information Age, the fall of the traditional media, and the bewildering explosion of personal information services are all connected to the historical chain of communications' revolutions. We need to understand these revolutions because they influence our present and future as much as any other trend in history. And we need to understand them not simply on a national basis - an unstable foundation for history in any event - but rather as part of the emergent global communications network.
Unlike most of the current texts in the field, Revolutions in Communication is an up-to-date resource, expanding upon contemporary scholarship. It provides students and teachers with detailed sidebars about key figures, technical innovations, global trends, and social movements, as well as supplemental reading materials, and a fully supportive companion website. Revolutions in Communication is an authoritative introduction to the history of all branches of media.
Bill Kovarik, Ph.D. is a Professor of Communication at Radford University, a publicly supported graduate level school located near (and once part of) Virginia Tech. He earned his B.S. in Journalism at Virginia Commonwealth University in 1974, his M.A. in Communications at the University of South Caroline in 1983 and his Ph.D. in Public Communications at the University of Maryland in 1993. His previous books include Mass Media and Environmental Conflict (Sage, 1997) and Web Design for the Mass Media (Allyn Bacon, 2001).