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The article discusses the effect of media on the people and vice versa. Posing new questions is the first challenge if we believe that the shape and purpose of new media should not be left to the traditional institutional forces that have produced our current media system. The article begins by looking at "old media" and the old questions that have framed discussion of them. They are followed with lessons from old media and old questions, and also the development of "wired communities," is also taken up. A case study of project "televillage," in Grand Forks, North Dakota, is used to illustrate the players and stakes and strategies that will produce and solidify a communication model for this new medium over the course of the next few years. The article concludes by summarizing the conditions that are believed to be necessary to get and keep new questions about new media on the table, with the potential for shaping a new model of communication that ensures public access defined as voice rather than as availability.

This article provides information on new curricular categories of the University of North Dakota School of Communication, as of September 1995. The school historically has had a highly visible leadership role in the state of North Dakota, particularly with newspapers and broadcast stations in the state. Rather than limiting the possibility for change, however, its visibility joined other factors in making conditions for change favorable. The new curriculum streamlines the five into one, communication. This new curriculum is both mission driven and assessment driven. The new mission statement and goals for student learning set out the intellectual integration of communication that the curriculum of the university reflects.