All media were once “new media.” This course investigates what it meant for societies – their political decision-making, their cultures, their economic systems, and the individuals within them – when they found themselves grappling over what “new media” meant and what new technologies of communication were supposed to do. Almost every new form of media has generated both utopian hopes and promises along with anxieties and fears. And we will see many of the same optimistic promises and fearful anxieties crop up over the centuries. We will also see that communication media do not necessarily determine how they will be used or what kinds of media regimes will result. Political, legal, and cultural interventions are often decisive in fixing the societal and economic fate of new forms of media. By examining when “old media” were “new,” we gain a necessary perspective on our current “new media” environment. We can ask what is really new. We can also evaluate decisions that previous societies made that can usefully inform our contemporary era.