‘Google and God’ lecture at Brown Hall

By Elliot Novess

Western Herald

Illustration by Brian Diefenbach

The Google search engine has become the foremost consultant for societies day-to-day knowledge, similar to an old form of communication, the Bible, according to John Durham Peters, who will give the lecture “God and Google,” later this week.

Peters will look at the similarities between the old and the new: the Bible and Google.  His lecture will take place from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 18, in room 2028 of Western Michigan University’s Brown Hall.

“Many misconceptions are held about the newness of media today,” said Autumn Edwards, an assistant professor of interpersonal communication and communication theory at WMU.

Peters’ speech will explore how media and religion help provide answers to society’s questions. The theory of dissemination is found in his work. In the field of communication, dissemination means to broadcast a message without direct feedback from an audience.

The popularity of Google shows a change in what society finds as truth at a formal level.  It is a crowd source – most trust it and see it as credible.

“It is a different take as to what we hold as true and we hold as knowledge,” Edwards said.

Peters is the F. Wendell Miller professor of communication studies at the University of Iowa.  He is a media historian and social theorist, and received his doctorate in communication theory from Sanford University in 1986.

Durham’s book, “Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication,” is his best known work.  Durham has authored five books in total.

“[Speaking into the air is] one piece of modern communication history every graduate student needs to read,” Edwards said.

Peters was chosen to speak at WMU by faculty and graduate students of the communication department. The school of communication chooses one scholar speaker every year as a part of their visiting scholars and artists program.

Peters will also be on campus at 9 a.m. Friday as a guest speaker in Steve Rhodes’ Communication 2000 class. He will also meet with faculty and students before leaving campus.

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Posted by heraldstaff on Feb 14 2010. Filed under Campus, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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