This seminar looks at the social, cultural, and political aspects, on the history of journalism, since the 17th century until the current information age. We shall be discussing some key issues such as: the English civil war of the 17th century as the cradle of modern Journalism; what are the interactions between Protestantism, free trade and journalism? The disposition between Liberalism and public sphere (the 18th century coffeehouses culture); the relationships between readers and writers, and the rise of the literary journalism (Swift's Examiner, Defoe's Review, Adisson & Steele and Mr. Spectator and the Cato Letters). Regarding the 19th century journalism, we shall discuss, on one hand, the sudden and striking emergent of the popular press with regards to the popular aspirations of the "crowd" to gain political emancipation (what historian Joel Wiener called: "Papers for the Millions"), and on the other hand, we shall examine critically the forth-Estate discourse of the Liberal press, mainly the London Times. Also, we shall study briefly the metropolitan journalism and the role of the journalist as an ethnographer; women-read, women-write: journalism and women, and the revolution brought upon the press by the new journalism of the 1880's. This topic will bring us to consider the significance of the new-new journalism of the 60's (Wolfe, Capote and Hunter Thompson between others) and the public journalism movement of the 80's and 90's as an introduction and prelude to the complex relationships between journalism and the Internet. In this regard We shall focus on issues such as: the Janus face of the online magazine; blogs and social-networks as a medium for 'journalism from below'; participatory journalism: the Indymedia case, and in this regard we shall try to clarify, or to refute, the significance which was embodied in the unofficial 'declaration of independent' used by the new-media protagonists: "we are the media!"