Directed by David Thorburn
The MIT Communications Forum sponsors panel discussions and symposiums concerning all aspects of modern communications, with special emphasis on emerging technologies.
A chief mission of the Forum is to encourage discussion and dialogue across academic disciplines and to reach beyond the academy in an ongoing conversation that includes politicians, journalists, and representatives of the corporate world.
Drawing on MIT's unique technical and intellectual resources, the Forum has served for nearly twenty years as a leading site for rigorous yet accessible discourse about the cultural, economic, and technological impact of communications.
The Forum has regularly examined such topics as the regulation of communications industries, defense communications, the theory and history of communications systems, the political uses of media, the cultural and social significance of new media. The Internet and the World Wide Web are a primary, continuing subject for the Forum which aims to nourish speculation and productive, citizenly dialogue about this powerful emerging medium among humanists and scientists, entrepreneurs and policy makers, programmers, designers, and artists.
The Forum is sponsored by firms affiliated with the MIT Industrial Liaison Program and is administered by a governing committee drawn from all sectors of the Institute. Its founding director was the late Professor Ithiel de Sola Pool of the Political Science Department, a pioneer in the study of communications.
Forum sessions are held approximately every two weeks and are open to the public. Each session is recorded and a printed summary of the presentations and the discussions is available upon request. The Forum also sponsors occasional workshops and special seminars.
on the web
MIT Communications Forum Web Site
http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/