Some Consequences of the Telegraph
Initiates the Electronic Era
Experiments with the unseen, with energy itself
Strangely overlooked Revolution (Carey)
Split of Communication and Transportation
Communication at the speed of light
Other media persist; are re-organized
Transportation reorganized- Railroads/Ships use the Telegraph.
Global Empire Building
Centralizing many of the key decisions
Coordinating military operations- e.g. 'conquest of the West'
Centralization and Global Business
Warehouses- Changing the way products come to market- Sears Catalogs
Fashions from core areas- e.g. Paris fashion
Creates first monopoly- more possible
Business becomes more impersonal (Carey)- mediated life
Train Time
- The organization of a global grid.
Rise of the Wire News Service
Importance of Instant News/Decline of Essay
Importance of Distant News/Decline of Local
Beginning of "Telegraphic Style"- brief, stripped of colloquial, regional, detail
Centralized Distribution- AP/UPI/Reuters/Agence France
Vast increase in information flow-
information as commodity- routines increase
Popular Awareness
Everyday people only vaguely aware of the coordination effect
Wired News: "Irrelevance, Incoherence, Impotence." (Postman)
All kinds of speculation about electricity- "Electrical Imagination"
Media Ecology- Development of one medium drives another
The other media revolutions continue-
Print- accumulating store of knowledge- science/global awareness
Mail- private circulation of information- now some by telegraph
Newspaper- public circulation- but how to make them inexpensive- ads
Photography- how to make rapid pictures for the papers- into movies