About

On September 16-17, 2011, the Departments of Communication  and History  at the University of Utah hosted the third biannual Frontiers of New Media Symposium, sponsored by David Simmons of Simmons Media, and featuring Tim Lenoir of Duke University and Richard White of Stanford University as keynote speakers. Eleven leading scholars of communication, history, and media came together for two days of lively and provocative conversation about the intersection and future of their fields.

The participating scholars, University of Utah faculty, students, and guests came away with new contacts, new energy, and new ideas about the past, present, and future of media and media scholarship. For information about this symposium and past symposia, as well as our ongoing work in this area, please explore this site.

At the University of Utah, we are proud to host the Frontiers of New Media Symposium in the very region that has been so pivotal in contributing to the development of computing and communication technologies. In an era when technologies for transportation and communication were virtually synonymous, the joining of the transcontinental railroad in Utah opened the nation both to faster transcontinental travel and, most importantly, communication. In fact, the first fully electronic television was invented by Utahn Philo T. Farnsworth and the University of Utah was one of the first four nodes on ARPANET, which eventually became the Internet. Utah has also recently emerged as a leader in fast-growing area of biotechnology, for which we are proud. Faculty and graduates from the University of Utah have made great contributions to the development of computer graphics and have founded a number of leading firms in the computing industry. Just to name-drop a few:

  • John Warnock founded the Adobe company
  • Alan Ashton, U of U Ph.D. and former BYU faculty, founded WordPerfect
  • Ed Catmull is co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios
  • Jim Clark founded Silicon Graphics, Inc., Netscape Communications Corporation,and WebMD.
  • Alan Kay developed the first graphical user interface for personal computers
  • David Evans and Ivan Sutherland were pioneers in computer graphics and founded Evans & Sutherland, a leading computer graphics firm
  • Tom Stockham was a pioneer in the field of digital music recording

So what better place to host this ground-breaking symposium than the University of Utah? For more information on the twelve renowned scholars who will be with us and other Frontiers of New Media news, please explore this site.