Marconi's Wireless and the Rhetoric of a New Technology

Marconi's Wireless and the Rhetoric of a New Technology PDF

Author: Aaron A. Toscano

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-02-09

Total Pages: 159

ISBN-13: 9400739761

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book examines the discourse surrounding the wireless, created by the Anglo-Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi. The wireless excited early twentieth-century audiences before it even became a viable black box technology. The wireless adhered to modernist values—speed, efficiency, militarization, and progress. Language surrounding the wireless is a form of technical communication, overlooked by today’s practitioners. This book establishes a broader definition for technical communication by examining a selection of the discourse surrounding Marconi's wireless. The book’s main themes are the following: 1) technical communication is all discourse surrounding technology, 2) the field of technical communication (or technical writing) should incorporate analyses of discourse surrounding technologies into its epistemology, 3) the wireless is a product of the society from which it comes (early twentieth-century Western civilization), and 4) the discourse surrounding the wireless is infused with tropes of progress—speed, efficiency, evolution, and ahistoricity.

Marconi's Wireless and the Rhetoric of a New Technology

Marconi's Wireless and the Rhetoric of a New Technology PDF

Author: Aaron Toscano

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-02-09

Total Pages: 159

ISBN-13: 940073977X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book examines the discourse surrounding the wireless, created by the Anglo-Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi. The wireless excited early twentieth-century audiences before it even became a viable black box technology. The wireless adhered to modernist values—speed, efficiency, militarization, and progress. Language surrounding the wireless is a form of technical communication, overlooked by today’s practitioners. This book establishes a broader definition for technical communication by examining a selection of the discourse surrounding Marconi's wireless. The book’s main themes are the following: 1) technical communication is all discourse surrounding technology, 2) the field of technical communication (or technical writing) should incorporate analyses of discourse surrounding technologies into its epistemology, 3) the wireless is a product of the society from which it comes (early twentieth-century Western civilization), and 4) the discourse surrounding the wireless is infused with tropes of progress—speed, efficiency, evolution, and ahistoricity.

The Wireless World

The Wireless World PDF

Author: Simon J. Potter

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-09-15

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 019286498X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The Wireless World sets out a new research agenda for the history of international broadcasting, and for radio history more generally. It examines global and transnational histories of long-distance wireless broadcasting, combining perspectives from international history, media and cultural history, the history of technology, and sound studies. It is a co-written book, the result of more than five years of collaboration. Bringing together their knowledge of a wide range of different countries, languages, and archives, the co-authors show how broadcasters and states deployed international broadcasting as a tool of international communication and persuasion. They also demonstrate that by paying more attention to audiences, programmes, and soundscapes, historians of international broadcasting can make important contributions to wider debates in social and cultural history. Exploring the idea of a 'wireless world', a globe connected, both in imagination and reality, by radio, The Wireless World sheds new light on the transnational connections created by international broadcasting. Bringing together all periods of international broadcasting within a single analytical frame, including the pioneering days of wireless, the Second World War, the Cold War, and the decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the study reveals key continuities and transformations. It looks at how wireless was shaped by internationalist ideas about the use of broadcasting to promote world peace and understanding, at how empires used broadcasting to perpetuate colonialism, and at how anti-colonial movements harnessed radio as a weapon of decolonization.

Relocating the History of Science

Relocating the History of Science PDF

Author: Theodore Arabatzis

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-05-19

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 3319145533

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This volume is put together in honor of a distinguished historian of science, Kostas Gavroglu, whose work has won international acclaim, and has been pivotal in establishing the discipline of history of science in Greece, its consolidation in other countries of the European Periphery, and the constructive dialogue of these emerging communities with an extended community of international scholars. The papers in the volume reflect Gavroglu’s broad range of intellectual interests and touch upon significant themes in recent history and philosophy of science. They include topics in the history of modern physical sciences, science and technology in the European periphery, integrated history and philosophy of science, historiographical considerations, and intersections with the history of mathematics, technology and contemporary issues. They are authored by eminent scholars whose academic and personal trajectories crossed with Gavroglu’s. The book will interest historians and philosophers of science and technology alike, as well as science studies scholars, and generally readers interested in the role of the sciences in the past in various geographical contexts.

Marconi

Marconi PDF

Author: Marc Raboy

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-06-28

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 0199313598

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

A little over a century ago, the world went wireless. Cables and all their limiting inefficiencies gave way to a revolutionary means of transmitting news and information almost everywhere, instantaneously. By means of "Hertzian waves," as radio waves were initially known, ships could now make contact with other ships (saving lives, such as on the doomed S.S. Titanic); financial markets could coordinate with other financial markets, establishing the price of commodities and fixing exchange rates; military commanders could connect with the front lines, positioning artillery and directing troop movements. Suddenly and irrevocably, time and space telescoped beyond what had been thought imaginable. Someone had not only imagined this networked world but realized it: Guglielmo Marconi. As Marc Raboy shows us in this enthralling and comprehensive biography, Marconi was the first truly global figure in modern communications. Born to an Italian father and an Irish mother, he was in many ways stateless, working his cosmopolitanism to advantage. Through a combination of skill, tenacity, luck, vision, and timing, Marconi popularized--and, more critically, patented--the use of radio waves. Soon after he burst into public view at the age of 22 with a demonstration of his wireless apparatus in London, 1896, he established his Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company and seemed unstoppable. He was decorated by the Czar of Russia, named an Italian Senator, knighted by King George V of England, and awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics--all before the age of 40. Until his death in 1937, Marconi was at the heart of every major innovation in electronic communication, courted by powerful scientific, political, and financial interests. He established stations and transmitters in every corner of the globe, from Newfoundland to Buenos Aires, Hawaii to Saint Petersburg. Based on original research and unpublished archival materials in four countries and several languages, Raboy's book is the first to connect significant parts of Marconi's story, from his early days in Italy, to his groundbreaking experiments, to his protean role in world affairs. Raboy also explores Marconi's relationshps with his wives, mistresses, and children, and examines in unsparing detail the last ten years of the inventor's life, when he returned to Italy and became a pillar of Benito Mussolini's fascist regime. Raboy's engrossing biography, which will stand as the authoritative work of its subject, proves that we still live in the world Marconi created.

Global Radio

Global Radio PDF

Author: Shaheed Nick Mohammed

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2019-09-25

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 1498594964

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Global Radio: From Shortwave to Streaming chronicles the development of radio as a global medium. In this book, Shaheed Nick Mohammed examines the evolution of radio from its early uses as little more than a novelty into a set of powerful systems for international exchanges of news, culture, and political influence. In doing so, the book follows the development of radio as a wireless form of the telegraph, its evolution into a medium for sound transmission across the air, and its adaptation to digital networked audio and transmissions technologies. Mohammed also outlines the myriad changes in the radio industry in numerous contexts around the globe and over time, including the early development of commercial and non-commercial broadcasting in the United States, Europe, India, and China and the evolution of so-called “international broadcasters.” As radio played a part in colonial politics, it also figured prominently in the politics of the post-colonial. Within the broader context of global radio, this book examines several former colonies and the transformation of radio from a tool of empire into an instrument of national development. It also focuses on instances in which developing nations have used radio to bridge the gap between rural audiences and digital networked technologies, connecting them to the global information superstructure. Scholars of media studies, communication, radio studies, international relations, and political science will find this book particularly useful.

Wireless

Wireless PDF

Author: Sungook Hong

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2010-01-22

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 0262514192

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

A new look at the early history of wireless communication. By 1897 Guglielmo Marconi had transformed James Clerk Maxwell's theory of electromagnetic waves into a workable wireless telegraphy system, and by 1907 Lee de Forest had invented the Audion, a feedback amplifier and oscillator that opened the way to practical radio transmission. Fifteen years after Marconi's invention, wireless had become an essential means of communication, as well as a hobby for many. This book offers a new perspective on the early days of wireless communication. Drawing on previously untapped archival evidence and recent work in the history and sociology of science and technology, it examines the substance and context of both experimental and theoretical aspects of engineering and scientific practices in the first years of this technology. It offers new insights into the relationship between Marconi and his scientific advisor, the physicist John Ambrose Fleming (inventor of the vacuum tube). It includes the full story of the infamous 1903 incident in which Marconi's opponent Nevil Maskelyne interfered with Fleming's public demonstration of Marconi's syntonic (tuning) system at the Royal Institution by sending derogatory messages from his own transmitter. The analysis of the Maskelyne affair highlights the struggle between Marconi and his opponents, the efficacy of early syntonic devices, Fleming's role as a public witness to Marconi's private experiments, and the nature of Marconi's "shows." It also provides a rare case study of how the credibility of an engineer can be created, consumed, and suddenly destroyed. The book concludes with a discussion of de Forest's Audion and the shift from wireless telegraphy to radio.

The Public Relations Handbook

The Public Relations Handbook PDF

Author: Alison Theaker

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-05-20

Total Pages: 782

ISBN-13: 1317487362

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The Public Relations Handbook, Fifth Edition provides an engaging overview and in-depth exploration of a dynamic and ever evolving industry. The diverse chapters are united by a set of student friendly features throughout, including clear chapter aims, analytical discussion questions, and key further reading. Featuring wide ranging contributions from key figures in the PR profession, the new edition presents a new chapter on public relations and activism, alongside discussion of key critical themes in public relations research and exploratory case studies on public relations practices in relation to a variety of different institutions, including The Bank of Scotland, Queen Margaret University, Diabetes UK, Continental Tyres, and Action for Children. Split into four parts exploring key conceptual themes of the context of public relations, strategic public relations, stakeholder public relations, and shaping the future, the book offers coverage of essential areas including: public relations, politics and the media media relations in the social media age using new technology effectively in public relations public relations and engagement in the not-for-profit sector business-to-business public relations the public relations of globalisation.

Video Games and American Culture

Video Games and American Culture PDF

Author: Aaron A. Toscano

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2019-12-12

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 1793601313

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Digital media are immersive technologies reflecting behaviors, attitudes, and values. The engrossing, entertaining virtual worlds video games provide are important sites for 21st century research. This book moves beyond assertions that video games cause violence by analyzing the culture that produces such material. While some popular media reinforce the idea that video games lead to violence, this book uses a cultural studies lens to reveal a more complex situation. Video games do not lead to violence, sexism, and chauvinism. Rather, Toscano argues, a violent, sexist, chauvinistic culture reproduces texts that reflect these values. Although video games have a worldwide audience, this book focuses on American culture and how this multi-billion dollar industry entertains us in our leisure time (and sometimes at work), bringing us into virtual environments where we have fun learning, fighting, discovering, and acquiring bragging rights. When politicians and moral crusaders push agendas that claim video games cause a range of social ills from obesity to mass shooting, these perspectives fail to recognize that video games reproduce hegemonic American values. This book, in contrast, focuses on what these highly entertaining cultural products tell us about who we are.