The terms media and communications are often offered as a couplet, or even used interchangeably. But communication is a broad idea with a very long history, and the arrival of media technologies are usually seen to make possible a special form of communication, in which physical co-presence was unnecessary. The printing press, for example, is often argued to have made nations, democracies and bureaucratic states possible, allowing for the widespread dissemination of printed matter as books, newspapers, laws and scientific literature. For the first time, populations who might never meet face-to-face could share culture and knowledge. In this episode, via a discussion of James Carey’s essay ‘The Telegraph and Technology’ alongside other work, we explore how electronic media technologies such as the telegraph transformed the idea of communication itself, separating it from physical transportation. The telegraph, and the technologies that followed in its wake, allowed messages to communicate near-instantaneously. In so doing, they radically altered our experiences of time, space, distance and locality. But communication technologies are not without geography: they are always embedded in and help to produce material times and spaces.
Thinkers discussed: Doreen Massey and David Harvey (briefly); Harold Innis (The Bias of Communication); Marshall McLuhan (The Gutenberg Galaxy); S.D. Noam Cook (The Gutenberg Myth); James Carey (The Telegraph and Ideology); Jonathan Sterne (Thinking with James Carey); David Morley (Communications and Mobility); Raymond Williams (Television: Technology and Cultural Form).
The Mediated City 09 (Re-release): Platform Urbanism
The Mediated City 08 (Re-release): Networked Location
The Mediated City 07: Urban Brandscapes
The Mediated City 06: Street Arts
The Mediated City 05 (Re-release): Media Architectures
The Mediated City 04 (Re-release): Urban Soundtracks
The Mediated City 03 (Re-release): Suburban Screens
The Mediated City 02 (Re-release): Print Urbanism
The Mediated City 01 (Re-release): Surfaces, Depths, Fragments, Publics
The Mediated City 09: Platform Urbanism
The Mediated City 08: Networked Location
The Mediated City: Observing the Digital Picket
The Mediated City 05: Media Architectures
The Mediated City 04: Urban Soundtracks
The Mediated City 03: Suburban Screens
The Mediated City 02: Print Urbanism
The Mediated City 01: Surfaces, Depths, Fragments, Publics
Media, Technology and Culture 10 (2nd Edition): Extractive Technologies
Media, Technology and Culture 09 (2nd Edition): Algorithmic Technologies
Media, Technology and Culture 08 (2nd Edition): Participatory Technologies
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