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Overview
With a foreword by Norman Denzin
Communication and the history of technology have invariably been examined in terms of artefacts and people.
Gary Krug argues that communication technology must be studied as an integral part of culture and lived-experience.
Rather than stand in awe of the apparent explosion of new technologies, this book links key moments and developments in communication technology with the social conditions of their time. It traces the evolution of technology, culture, and the self as mutually dependent and influential.
This innovative approach will be welcomed by undergraduates and postgraduates needing to develop their understanding of the cultural effects of communication technology, and the history of key communication systems and techniques.
Synopsis
Krug believes there are few truths, only multiple tellings, and so he examines his themes mainly as a series of conversations based on interconnecting tropes. For example, he analyzes how people watching the events of 9/11 on television reacted to the "live" event, and how access to pornography and control of its content represent the realities of the social order. He describes the technologies of language in terms of the current thinking on what constitutes "text," agrees that memory is now in fact mainly a backdrop to the self, and describes how relative truth can be, given the power of the modern military industrial complex to control and manipulate it. He closes by describing the new metaphysics of technology and its implications for what we perceive as "real" and "self." Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR