Media Technology and Society
How are media born? How do they change? And how do they change us?\ Media Technology and Society offers a comprehensive account of the history of communications technologies, from the printing press to the internet. Brian Winston argues that the development of new media, from the telegraph and the telephone to computers, satellite and virtual reality, is the product of a constant play-off between social necessity and suppression: the unwritten law by which new technologies are introduced into...
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How are new media born? How do they change? And how do they change us? Media Technology and Society offers a comprehensive account of the history of communications technologies, from the printing press to the internet.
\ \ \ List of figures\ \ \ \ \ Acknowledgements\ \ \ \ \ Introduction: A storm from paradise - technological innovation, diffusion and suppression\ 1\ \ \ Pt. I\ Propagating sound at considerable distances\ \ \ \ 1\ The telegraph\ 19\ \ \ 2\ Before the speaking telephone\ 30\ \ \ 3\ The capture of sound\ 51\ \ \ Pt. II\ The vital spark and fugitive pictures\ \ \ \ 4\ Wireless and radio\ 67\ \ \ 5\ Mechanically scanned television\ 88\ \ \ 6\ Electronically scanned television\ 100\ \ \ 7\ Television spin-offs and redundancies\ 126\ \ \ Pt. III\ Inventions for casting up sums very pretty\ \ \ \ 8\ Mechanising calculation\ 147\ \ \ 9\ The first computers\ 166\ \ \ 10\ Suppressing the main frames\ 189\ \ \ 11\ The integrated circuit\ 206\ \ \ 12\ The coming of the microcomputer\ 227\ \ \ Pt. IV\ The intricate web of trails, this grand system\ \ \ \ 13\ The beginnings of networks\ 243\ \ \ 14\ Networks and recording technologies\ 261\ \ \ 15\ Communications satellites\ 276\ \ \ 16\ The satellite era\ 295\ \ \ 17\ Cable television\ 305\ \ \ 18\ The Internet\ 321\ \ \ \ Conclusion: The pile of debris - from the Boulevard des Capucins to the Leningradsky Prospect\ 337\ \ \ \ Notes\ 343\ \ \ \ References\ 351\ \ \ \ Index\ 361\ \
\ BooknewsOffers a comprehensive account of the history of communications technologies, from the point of view that the development of new media is the product of a constant play-off between social necessity and suppression. Challenges the concept of a revolution on communications technology by highlighting the long histories of developments such as the fax (introduced in 1847) and the idea of television (patented in 1884). Examines why some prototypes are abandoned and why many inventions are created simultaneously by independent inventors, and shows how new industries develop around inventions. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.\ \
