Media and the American mind: from Morse to McLuhan

Part 1: Contemporary reaction to three new media.

"Lightning lines" and the birth of modern communication, 1838-1900

American motion pictures and the new popular culture, 1893-1918

The ethereal hearth: American radio from wireless through broadcasting, 1892-1940

Part 2: Theorists of modern communication

Toward a new community?: modern communication in the social thought of Charles Horton Cooley, John Dewey, and Robert E. Park

The rise of empirical media study: communications research as behavioral science, 1930-1960

Metahistory, mythology, and the media: the American thought of Harold Innis and Marshal McLuhan

Epilogue: dialectical tensions in the American media, past and future.