Media, Information and Technoculture 2000F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Claude Chappe, Samuel Morse, Electrical Telegraph
21 Oct 2016
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Document Summary
Reading public: atomistic fragmenting, distant embrace, vicarious partic. Binding: local embrace, face-to-face participation, pulpit news, religious(?) Scarcity/expense writing material: stone, clay, papyrus, parchment, calligraphy as enemy of literacy. Daily talk: scribal, not printed: e. g. , writing on blackboards. Has to be careful about how the news is printed so that it is legible. Trying to speak a language people are familiar with. Transportation model: physical things inscribed with messages being moved in order to be read. Transmission model: communicating at a distance is not tied to means of transportations, moved independently of geography, e. g. , an email vs a letter in the mail. Transportation to transmission model: message can move faster than the messenger. Early examples: smoke signals, drums, ship-to-ship. Communicate at a distance through certain infrastructures. Contraption moving through pullies, configure the contraption in certain ways to send a message. Possible to have messages received in an hour. Military use: 15 years of continuous warfare by france.
