To call new media “new” has become something of a misnomer; the Internet as we know it (meaning primarily the world wide web) has been around for over a dozen years, and that’s only one of the more recent network protocols invented for computer-based communication. This course will serve as an introduction to theories of digital media, new and otherwise, with attention to the pre-history of the Internet systems we’re now familiar with, the theoretical modes of reading that such technologies have helped give birth to, and the social and political effects that these technologies have had. Some of what we’ll read will seem a bit dated, as the Internet has developed quickly over the last decade-plus, but all of it remains important for a well-grounded understanding of the development both of network technologies and of scholarly thought about those technologies.

http://machines.pomona.edu/347-2008