Fast Forward: Science, Technology, and the Communication Revolution
This exciting series uses award-winning documentary films and text to involve the public in a study of the impact of science and technology in the 20th century. Programs focus on the rapid introduction of new communication technologies—the automobile, movies, radio, television, and the Internet—and on the astonishing impact that technological innovations have had on our work and home lives. We'll discuss how American society stimulated and encouraged technical change in communications and how these changes altered social, political, and economic patterns.
As Fast Forward so dramatically demonstrates, the 20th century, for all of its horrors (some of them, of course, a consequence of science and technology,) was an odyssey of science which really did deliver on its promise of a wonderful life, at least for those who could afford it.
Format: VHS
Session 1: Fast Forward, an introduction
Film: Bigger, Better, Faster
Session 2: The Telephone
Film : The Telephone
Session 3: Movies
Film: Film History, Film Industry
Session 4: Radio
Film: Radio—Out of Thin Air
Session 5: Television
Film: Picture Power
Session 6: The Internet
Film: The Internet—Behind the Web
