Media Culture in Transformation
Table of Contents
Week 1: Proximity – Distance ............................................................................................... 2
Week 2: Still – moving .......................................................................................................... 9
Week 3: Spectacle – narrative ............................................................................................ 17
Week 4: Recorded – live ..................................................................................................... 24
Week 5: Viewer – user ........................................................................................................ 30
Week 6: Analog – digital .................................................................................................... 35
,Week 1: Proximity – Distance
- Key Transformation: the rise of (electric) communications media and technological
infrastructures.
- Rapid communication at a distance, telegraphy, telephony, radio
- Industrial Revolution = 1760s – 1840s; machines, chemical manufacturing, iron
production, steam power, water-power, mechanized factory system
- First public railway in the world: Stockton & Darlington, 1825 (steam locomotive)
Panoramic Travel (Wolfgang Schivelbusch, 1977)
- changes in the 19th century, with the modern experience of railway travel
- Schivelbusch suggests that railway travel was so different from previous forms of
transportation that it changed the way people experienced and thought about space
as well as time
- Modern consciousness = loss of consciousness with less details about the road; bigger
picture; velocity blurs all foreground objects there is no more foreground
“While the consciousness molded by traditional travel finds itself in a mounting crisis, another
kind of perception starts developing which does not try to fight the effects of the new
technology of travel but, on the contrary, assimilates them entirely. For such a pair of eyes
staring out of the compartment window, all the things that the old consciousness experiences
as losses become sources of enrichment. The velocity and linearity with which the train
traverses the landscape no longer destroys it - not at all; only now is it possible to fully
appreciate that landscape.”
- Before the railway = more impressions from the road itself (it was longer, and less
comfortable) more intense experience, ability to spot more details about the
surroundings on the way
o Diorama – life-size scene, naturalistic setting
o Travelers relationship = small groups of people, interaction, conversation
- After the railway = end of intensity of travel; speed, directness, monotony; not such
a close relationship between the traveler and the traveled space; sudden loss of
continuity
o The train = projectile, traveling on train is like being shot through the landscape
o Loss of landscape, difficulty of recognizing details
o On the other hand, seeing the bigger picture - panorama, different impression
o Almost no look ahead – only the side view
o Travelers relationship = too many people, less intense and durable
relationships between travelers; the travelers do not know what to do with
each other, reading becomes a surrogate for communication that no longer
takes place; alienation
- “the traveler has no way of distancing himself from objects - all he can do is to ignore
the objects and portions of the landscape that are closer to him, and to direct his gaze
to the more distant objects that seem to pass by more slowly”
, - “The rapidity and variety of the impressions necessarily fatigue both the eye and the
brain”
- “Reading while traveling becomes almost obligatory. The dissolution of reality and its
resurrection as panorama thus became agents for the total emancipation from the
traversed landscape: the traveler's gaze can now move into an imaginary surrogate
landscape, that of his book” having to kill the time by having other activity
- “Class” classification according to price, comfort
o 3 classes; 1st class on the train = bourgeois
- “The emergence of reading while traveling is not only a result of the dissolution and
panoramization of the outside landscape due to velocity, but also a result of the
situation inside the train compartment. The railroad disrupts the travelers'
relationships to each other as it disrupts their relationship to the traversed landscape”
Telecommunications (Gabriele Balbi, 2013)
- From the Handbook of Communication History (2013)
- Conditions for modern communications media – telegraph, telephone, etc.
- Relationship to cultural developments connected to everyday life, transport,
commerce, information exchange, war and empire
- Tele = distance; the term telecommunications became common in 1920s
- Telecommunication
o Transmitting a message from one point to another in a distance – one-to-one
communications
o Sending a message without physical transportation of the message
o Telecommunication is interactive (allows to reply)
- Various technological, social, political and economic factors:
o Political = crucial components of national communication strategies,
instruments of power, military purposes, governance purposes; control of
information
o Economic = telecommunication had more economic relevance in history than
communication
o Technological = The macro-systèmes techniques (MST) and the large technical
systems (LTS) approaches have defined telecommunications historically and
sociologically as complex physical artefacts, combining networks of
communication, political, economic, and social organizations
o Social = networking/network; self-expanding telecommunication network, co-
constructed elements of the society
- Warfare had great influence on telecommunication evolution: smoke, visual,
acoustic signals, flags, carrier pigeons all that to communicate outcomes of battles,
geographic positions, etc. until the end of 18th century
- The optical telegraph:
, o During the French Revolution (1789-1799), an optical telegraph was used for
the first time (Claude Chappe) – it was based on a permanent network
established in a territory; the network’s junctions were represented by towers
surmounted by mechanical and articulated arms that could reach different
positions; there was a kind of switching because special telegraphers received
the message from the previous tower and transmitted it to the next one =
political and military use
o In 1820s, UK, optical telegraph was used for communicating ships’ arrivals in
harbors = commercial use
o The system could not be used with bad weather conditions, it was expensive
(each network consisted of several towers) and only one message could be
transmitted through a single line
- The electrical telegraph:
o During the 1830s
o Morse code = named after Samuel Morse
o Played an important role in many wars since 1840s
o Helped modernizing countries, as well as hold governance over colonies
o Economic and social effects: The stock market acquired a new rationality,
railway traffic regulations (preventing accidents)
o Communication in between nations, commercializing goods
- The telephone:
o Telecommunications at home, domestic medium breaking barriers between
public and private sphere
o Phone = from Greek, voice, sound
o between the 1850s and the 1870s, Philipp Reiss, Antonio Meucci, Thomas
Edison, Elisha Gray, and Alexander Graham Bell claimed to be the inventor of
the telephone and many countries had scientists that thought, discovered or
patented elements of the “speaking telegraph”
o human switchboard operators in 1910s-1920s then automatized
o Entered the everyday lives of people after the WW2 in Europe
o Different success of the medium in different countries (in Africa it never really
succeeded, in Russia it was considered a thread, etc.)
o The telephone destroyed the hierarchical power and increased possibilities of
monitoring; good for emergencies and bad for privacy
o Very successful in between women – home matters, social relations
- Pantelegraph, Fax, Picture-phone, Television:
o Scanning and sending fixed images by telegraph already in 1860s =
pantelegraph
o Picture-phone = idea of exchanging moving images
Table of Contents
Week 1: Proximity – Distance ............................................................................................... 2
Week 2: Still – moving .......................................................................................................... 9
Week 3: Spectacle – narrative ............................................................................................ 17
Week 4: Recorded – live ..................................................................................................... 24
Week 5: Viewer – user ........................................................................................................ 30
Week 6: Analog – digital .................................................................................................... 35
,Week 1: Proximity – Distance
- Key Transformation: the rise of (electric) communications media and technological
infrastructures.
- Rapid communication at a distance, telegraphy, telephony, radio
- Industrial Revolution = 1760s – 1840s; machines, chemical manufacturing, iron
production, steam power, water-power, mechanized factory system
- First public railway in the world: Stockton & Darlington, 1825 (steam locomotive)
Panoramic Travel (Wolfgang Schivelbusch, 1977)
- changes in the 19th century, with the modern experience of railway travel
- Schivelbusch suggests that railway travel was so different from previous forms of
transportation that it changed the way people experienced and thought about space
as well as time
- Modern consciousness = loss of consciousness with less details about the road; bigger
picture; velocity blurs all foreground objects there is no more foreground
“While the consciousness molded by traditional travel finds itself in a mounting crisis, another
kind of perception starts developing which does not try to fight the effects of the new
technology of travel but, on the contrary, assimilates them entirely. For such a pair of eyes
staring out of the compartment window, all the things that the old consciousness experiences
as losses become sources of enrichment. The velocity and linearity with which the train
traverses the landscape no longer destroys it - not at all; only now is it possible to fully
appreciate that landscape.”
- Before the railway = more impressions from the road itself (it was longer, and less
comfortable) more intense experience, ability to spot more details about the
surroundings on the way
o Diorama – life-size scene, naturalistic setting
o Travelers relationship = small groups of people, interaction, conversation
- After the railway = end of intensity of travel; speed, directness, monotony; not such
a close relationship between the traveler and the traveled space; sudden loss of
continuity
o The train = projectile, traveling on train is like being shot through the landscape
o Loss of landscape, difficulty of recognizing details
o On the other hand, seeing the bigger picture - panorama, different impression
o Almost no look ahead – only the side view
o Travelers relationship = too many people, less intense and durable
relationships between travelers; the travelers do not know what to do with
each other, reading becomes a surrogate for communication that no longer
takes place; alienation
- “the traveler has no way of distancing himself from objects - all he can do is to ignore
the objects and portions of the landscape that are closer to him, and to direct his gaze
to the more distant objects that seem to pass by more slowly”
, - “The rapidity and variety of the impressions necessarily fatigue both the eye and the
brain”
- “Reading while traveling becomes almost obligatory. The dissolution of reality and its
resurrection as panorama thus became agents for the total emancipation from the
traversed landscape: the traveler's gaze can now move into an imaginary surrogate
landscape, that of his book” having to kill the time by having other activity
- “Class” classification according to price, comfort
o 3 classes; 1st class on the train = bourgeois
- “The emergence of reading while traveling is not only a result of the dissolution and
panoramization of the outside landscape due to velocity, but also a result of the
situation inside the train compartment. The railroad disrupts the travelers'
relationships to each other as it disrupts their relationship to the traversed landscape”
Telecommunications (Gabriele Balbi, 2013)
- From the Handbook of Communication History (2013)
- Conditions for modern communications media – telegraph, telephone, etc.
- Relationship to cultural developments connected to everyday life, transport,
commerce, information exchange, war and empire
- Tele = distance; the term telecommunications became common in 1920s
- Telecommunication
o Transmitting a message from one point to another in a distance – one-to-one
communications
o Sending a message without physical transportation of the message
o Telecommunication is interactive (allows to reply)
- Various technological, social, political and economic factors:
o Political = crucial components of national communication strategies,
instruments of power, military purposes, governance purposes; control of
information
o Economic = telecommunication had more economic relevance in history than
communication
o Technological = The macro-systèmes techniques (MST) and the large technical
systems (LTS) approaches have defined telecommunications historically and
sociologically as complex physical artefacts, combining networks of
communication, political, economic, and social organizations
o Social = networking/network; self-expanding telecommunication network, co-
constructed elements of the society
- Warfare had great influence on telecommunication evolution: smoke, visual,
acoustic signals, flags, carrier pigeons all that to communicate outcomes of battles,
geographic positions, etc. until the end of 18th century
- The optical telegraph:
, o During the French Revolution (1789-1799), an optical telegraph was used for
the first time (Claude Chappe) – it was based on a permanent network
established in a territory; the network’s junctions were represented by towers
surmounted by mechanical and articulated arms that could reach different
positions; there was a kind of switching because special telegraphers received
the message from the previous tower and transmitted it to the next one =
political and military use
o In 1820s, UK, optical telegraph was used for communicating ships’ arrivals in
harbors = commercial use
o The system could not be used with bad weather conditions, it was expensive
(each network consisted of several towers) and only one message could be
transmitted through a single line
- The electrical telegraph:
o During the 1830s
o Morse code = named after Samuel Morse
o Played an important role in many wars since 1840s
o Helped modernizing countries, as well as hold governance over colonies
o Economic and social effects: The stock market acquired a new rationality,
railway traffic regulations (preventing accidents)
o Communication in between nations, commercializing goods
- The telephone:
o Telecommunications at home, domestic medium breaking barriers between
public and private sphere
o Phone = from Greek, voice, sound
o between the 1850s and the 1870s, Philipp Reiss, Antonio Meucci, Thomas
Edison, Elisha Gray, and Alexander Graham Bell claimed to be the inventor of
the telephone and many countries had scientists that thought, discovered or
patented elements of the “speaking telegraph”
o human switchboard operators in 1910s-1920s then automatized
o Entered the everyday lives of people after the WW2 in Europe
o Different success of the medium in different countries (in Africa it never really
succeeded, in Russia it was considered a thread, etc.)
o The telephone destroyed the hierarchical power and increased possibilities of
monitoring; good for emergencies and bad for privacy
o Very successful in between women – home matters, social relations
- Pantelegraph, Fax, Picture-phone, Television:
o Scanning and sending fixed images by telegraph already in 1860s =
pantelegraph
o Picture-phone = idea of exchanging moving images
