The Communications Forum is an on-going set of conferences (known as Media in Transition) and panel discussions reflecting the development of thought about the relationship of communications and culture as new technologies have emerged over the last thirty years. At least since 1983.
Goals of Project
The project consists of making accessible through DOME the proceedings of conferences and panel discussions that have been organized and hosted by the Communications Forum ( home page: http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/). Some digitization of early print summaries and transcripts will be needed; some recordings are born digital (these are currently already served up on the CommForum web site); other recordings on analog tape will require digitization as well.
Description of contentÂ
From the Comm Forum web site (at http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/about.html)
"For more than twenty-five years the Communications Forum has played a unique role at MIT and beyond as a site for cutting-edge discussion of the cultural, political, economic and technological impact of communications, with special emphasis on emerging technologies.
Leading scholars, journalists, media producers, political figures and corporate executives have appeared at conferences and panels sponsored by the Forum.
Translating specialized or technical perspectives into a discourse accessible to non-specialists is a defining ambition of the Forum. When engineers, scientists, other academics or media practitioners address the Forum, they accept a responsibility to speak in a common language that must be understood and used by literate citizens and professionals in many fields.
The Forum's founding director was the late Ithiel de Sola Pool of the MIT Political Science Department, a pioneer in the study of communications." After Pool's death, MIT political scientist Harvey M. Sapolsky took the reins until David Thorburn (MIT Literature), who currently runs the Forum, its events, and its fundraising with the help of Brad Seawell, became its director in the early 1990s (exact date to be established).