[liberationtech] Suggestions for a course

Thomas Smyth thomas.smyth at gatech.edu
Thu Mar 10 06:44:33 PST 2011


You might try News Over The Wires by Blondheim which focuses on the
telegraph news monopoly developed by the Associated Press in the 19th
century. Fascinating read (so far)...

On 10 March 2011 03:21, Ben Peters <bjpeters at gmail.com> wrote:
> Interesting question... here's a scatter shot of examples:
>
> Anna Akhmatova once characterized Soviet samizdat as "extra-Gutenberg" and
> there's work suggesting underground peer-to-peer
> self-publication/circulation in the early Soviet Union could be read as a
> cultural practice of gift-giving--an idea with contested revolutionary
> potential taken up in other contexts by people like Lewis Hyde on gifts,
> creativity, and the commons.
>
> Tom Standage documents the press fever surrounding the telegraph in The
> Victorian Internet: e.g., interstate wedding vows sent and made by Morse
> code may give Second Life matrimony a run for its money.
>
> Or there's James Carey's argument that the electric telegraph brought upon a
> revolution by affording the "effective separation of communication from
> transportation." For example, he argues that instantaneous electric
> telegraph affords the rise of East Coast arbitrage markets, and sped
> abstract monopoly capitalism--a point that may connect with concerns about
> the global spread of corporate info tech, e-bay's effect on local markets,
> the efficient market hypothesis and foreign policy, etc.
>
> In the Railway Journey, Wolfgang Schivelbusch interprets the press'
> pathological predictions of the railway, which some thought would bring
> about (if I remember correctly) brain defects, premature birth, and
> sterility, on the one hand, and transnational freedoms of interaction and
> trade on the other.
>
> Etc., etc.... (Plato's Phaedrus as an anachronistic comment on recording
> technologies (like writing); cf. Nicholas Carr, who laments the loss of
> literacy, not orality.)
>
> I hope others keep sending more pertinent examples around, which I'm really
> enjoying. Meanwhile, some other examples can be found in my bibliographic
> case for new media history (2009).
>
> Ben
>
> ---
> petersbenjamin.wordpress.com
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 4:44 AM, A. Ross Johnson <arjohnson at stanford.edu>
> wrote:
>>
>> As one case, “jamming”  was widely used during the Cold War, and before
>> and after,  by repressive regimes to block international radio broadcasts.
>> A good overview is George Woodard’s chapter,  “Cold War Jamming” in Johnson
>> and Parta, eds., Cold War Broadcasting; Impact on the Soviet Union and
>> Eastern Europe.  A Collection of Studies and Documents (CEU Press, 2010),
>> pp. 51-66.
>>
>> Audio samples of  different kinds of jamming, along with other
>> information,  may be found at www.radiojamming.info, a site created by
>> Rimantas Pleikys of Lithuania, perhaps the leading authority on radio
>> jamming.  Hoover Archives has a 1976 recording made in Prague of jamming of
>> the RFE Czechoslovak Service.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>>
>>
>> A Ross Johnson
>>
>> Hoover Institution and Woodrow Wilson Center
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> From: liberationtech-bounces at lists.stanford.edu
>> [mailto:liberationtech-bounces at lists.stanford.edu] On Behalf Of S Vivek
>> Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 6:15 PM
>> To: liberationtech at lists.stanford.edu
>> Subject: [liberationtech] Suggestions for a course
>>
>>
>>
>> Hello all,
>>
>>
>>
>> I recently joined Stanford University and I will be teaching a course with
>> Prof. Larry Diamond here shortly.  My course is entitled "Internet, public
>> action and development" and I will be dealing with a variety of ways in
>> which the Net can potentially enable/curtail/influence public action.  In
>> order to put things in perspective, I wish to provide students with
>> interesting news articles on radio, telephone an other communication
>> technologies at a time they were being developed.  The idea is to reflect
>> today's themes such as the internet being open, various forms of struggle to
>> control communication systems, etc.  I wanted to ask you all if there are
>> pieces that you found striking that I should recommend to my students.  It
>> would be a great pedagogical tool, and I would appreciate any suggestions
>> that you may have.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you,
>>
>>
>>
>> Warm regards
>>
>>
>>
>> S Vivek
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> liberationtech mailing list
>> liberationtech at lists.stanford.edu
>>
>> Should you need to change your subscription options, please go to:
>>
>> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
>>
>> If you would like to receive a daily digest, click "yes" (once you click
>> above) next to "would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily
>> digest?"
>>
>> You will need the user name and password you receive from the list
>> moderator in monthly reminders.
>>
>> Should you need immediate assistance, please contact the list moderator.
>>
>> Please don't forget to follow us on http://twitter.com/#!/Liberationtech
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> liberationtech mailing list
> liberationtech at lists.stanford.edu
>
> Should you need to change your subscription options, please go to:
>
> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
>
> If you would like to receive a daily digest, click "yes" (once you click
> above) next to "would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily
> digest?"
>
> You will need the user name and password you receive from the list moderator
> in monthly reminders.
>
> Should you need immediate assistance, please contact the list moderator.
>
> Please don't forget to follow us on http://twitter.com/#!/Liberationtech
>



More information about the liberationtech mailing list