Haunted media : electronic presence from telegraphy to television /
Jeffrey Sconce.
- Durham, NC : Duke University Press, 2000.
- x, 257 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
- Console-ing passions .
Includes bibliographical references (p. [233]-247) and index.
1. Mediums and media -- 2. The voice from the void -- 3. Alien ether -- 4. Static and Stasis -- 5. Simulation and psychosis.
"In Haunted Media Jeffrey Sconce examines American culture's persistent association of new electronic media--from the invention of the telegraph to the introduction of television and computers--with paranormal or spiritual phenomena. By offering a historical analysis of the relation between communication technologies, discourses of modernity, and metaphysical preoccupations, Sconce demonstrates how accounts of 'electronic presence' have gradually changed over the decades from a fascination with the boundaries of space and time to a more generalized anxiety over the seeming sovereignty of technology. Sconce focuses on five important cultural moments in the history of telecommunication from the mid-nineteenth century to the present: the advent of telegraphy; the arrival of wireless communication; radio's transformation into network broadcasting; the introduction of television; and contemporary debates over computers, cyberspace, and virtual reality. In the process of examining the trajectory of these technological innovations, he discusses topics such as the rise of spiritualism as a utopian response to the electronic powers presented by telegraphy and how radio, in the twentieth century, came to be regarded as a way of connecting to a more atomized vision of the afterlife."--Book cover.
Mass media--Technological innovations--History. Telecommunication--History. Mass media and culture--History. Medios de comunicación de masas--Historia. Comunicación y tecnología--Historia--Estados Unidos. Medios de comunicación de masas--Aspectos sociales. Comunicación y tecnología--Historia. Ciberespacio.