This contextual course examines the observation that every culture and every age has its favorite model of perception and knowledge that is inclined to be prescribed for everybody and everything.  The course begins with an overview of the basic elements and patterns through which human beings create understanding, especially the seven dimensions of cross-cultural communication.

     From Marshall McLuhan, we will reflect on his premise that any technology gradually creates a new human environment (the medium is the message/massage) as it speaks to and works on and over us.  From Neil Postman, we will consider the decline of the Age of Typography and the rise of the Age of Television and its ability to undermine mental processes and social relations.  From Neal Gabler, we will discuss the ever-growing segment of the American economy devoted to designing, building, and dressing “the sets” in which we live, work, shop and play; that is, how can we understand why ENTERTAINMENT has become the primary value of American life.    Finally, we will explore the Millennium Matrix and how each culture, since the time of Christ, has utilized one dominant form of media as its primary form of communication, whether it was oral, print, broadcast, digital, and how these media have effected/affected how we know and how we live together.