Plato
Plato is an ancient Greek author and philosopher, of whom you have probably heard. I think he is an interesting figure in the context of old and new media, because he is by far one of the most read ancient authors. He lived around 400 BC, so it's quite impressive if people read your books so many years later. Also, many other figures of his time of whom we also have interesting texts are not even remotely as popular. You've probably never heard of Solon, Pindar or Heraclite, but you probably have heard of Plato.
The reason that Plato is still being read is that his texts are still interesting to read for us. And no, that is not the case for all ancient authors. Though for research purposes it may be interesting to do so, you're not going to casually read some of Hesiods texts for fun; it's hard for us to understand, it doesn't relate to topics we generally find relevant today, there may not even be a translation available on the internet... etc.
But for Plato this is really different. When you find a good translation of his texts, you will probably find it is quite a casual and interesting read. It is easy to read, because they are generally written in dialogues between Plato and just some villager, which is much more comfortable to read than some strange ancient poem. It is also interesting, because many of Plato's topics are in a sense very basic. He talks about questions such as 'What is love?' and 'What is the best kind of society?'. The things he writes about that are, I think at least, still interesting for us today.
I thought the following text would be a nice example in the light of this course.
Plato, Phaedrus (274c - 275b)
So I heard that at Naucratis in Egypt there was one of the ancient gods, of whom they call the sacred bird Ibis. And of this god the name was Theuth. They say that he was the first to invent numbers and arithmetic, geometry and astronomy, and also backgammon and dice-games, and, most importantly, script. Thamus was king of the whole of Egypt at that time, (living) in the higher area of the big city that the Greeks like to call the Thebes of Egypt, and the god (of this city) they call Ammon.
Theuth came to Thamus and and showed the technologies, and he said that it was necessary to spread these among all Egyptians. Theuth asked what benefit each would have. After Thamus had gone through each, Theuth said if it seemed good to him or not. The one thing he disapproved of, and the other he praised. It is said that Thamus displayed many things in both praise and blame to Teuth about each of his technologies, which would take too many words to go through all; but when he came to the script, he said:
"This invention, O King, will make the Egyptians wiser and will make them have a better memory, because I invented it as a potion for memory and wisdom." And the king said: "Most ingenious Theuth, one has the skill to create new technologies, but another has the right to judge their harm and usefulness for those who will use the technologies. And now you, being the father of the script, say it can do the opposite of what it actually does, because of your affection. It will bring forgetfulness in the mind of those who learn to use it, because of negligence of their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have not invented a potion for memory, but for reminding: You offer only the appearance of wisdom to your pupils, not real wisdom. They will have read much without any teaching and will therefore seem to be knowing much, being ignorant for the most part, and they will be hard to get along with, because they will become people who appear wise, instead of people who are wise.
(I made this translation; you can find the original text at: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+phaedrus+274&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0173 )