Media History Worldviews and communication futures by Ahmad Murad Merican

This book then seeks to introduce alternative perspectives with regard to examining communication as to its historical, political and epistemological constituents; and as well as (re)locating it within an Islamic perspective and other sacred traditions. The author in acknowledging the importance of addressing the intellectual ferment in communication as a field of study, suggests a redefinition of the subject and reconstituting it in the light of current debates. Significant to the project is emphasizing and embracing dimensions otherwise overlooked by mainstream historiography. In so doing, the author reclaims some of the neglected aspects of the history of the field, by refuting what has been accepted as “received knowledge,” particularly within the context of the formation and development of Western science and thought. Arguments are advanced linking the transcendence of the idea to the extension of man’s mind and culture through what is termed as technologies of literacy and the sacred.