Seminar 1 - instructions + info about times and places

.

Please note the fact that seminar 1 has been moved to Friday September 9.

Half the class (family names starting with letters A-H, e.g. Ammouri-Höjer) will meet in seminar room V33 at 13-15 on Friday September 9. The other half of the class (family names starting with letters I-Å, e.g. Ingemansson-Åkesson) will meet in seminar room D42 at 8-10 on Friday September 9.

Those few of you who have another seminar in the morning (ME2016) are welcome to move to the afternoon group. This also creates the space for a few students to change in the other direction, but I would like you to tell me that in advance, because we would like the groups to be balance and have the same number of students.

Do also note that the morning seminar will be immediately followed by a guest lecture - but that lecture is one of the few in the start-up phase of the course where our guest will speak in Swedish.

Instructions for the seminar:

1. Go to Bilda. Download the files "Radio ads.pdf" and "Middletown.pdf" (Bilda/DM2571 Future of media/Documents/Literature).

2. Look at the advertising (from the United States from the 1940's to the 1970's).

- What recurrent themes can you find in the pictures? What is the "essence" of radio as seen in these advertisements?

- What ideas about a) the technology itself and b) its use can you find in these pictures?

- What trends and what varieties can you identify both when it comes to the design of the radio set as a physical artifact as well how people are imagined/supposed to make use of radio in the ads?

- What are the similarities and what are the differences between radio back then (30-70 years ago) and radio today?

3. Read the two short texts (5 pages) about the spread and the use of radio in the United States in the mid-1920's and the mid-1930's.

4. Prepare for the seminar by (based on the instructions above and your analysis of the materials) writing down the one thing in your analysis that you think is most interesting and insightful. Please write around 100 words (75-150 is ok), print it and bring it on paper to the seminar. Don't forget to write your name on that paper - your submission is the proof of your attendance at the seminar!

.