| Description |
x, 257 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm |
| Series |
Console-ing passions |
|
Console-ing passions.
|
| Contents |
1. Mediums and media -- 2. The voice from the void -- 3. Alien ether -- 4. Static and Stasis -- 5. Simulation and psychosis |
| Summary |
"In Haunted Media Jeffrey Sconce examines American culture's persistent association of new electronic media--from the invention of the telegraph to the introduction of television and computers--with paranormal or spiritual phenomena. By offering a historical analysis of the relation between communication technologies, discourses of modernity, and metaphysical preoccupations, Sconce demonstrates how accounts of 'electronic presence' have gradually changed over the decades from a fascination with the boundaries of space and time to a more generalized anxiety over the seeming sovereignty of technology. Sconce focuses on five important cultural moments in the history of telecommunication from the mid-nineteenth century to the present: the advent of telegraphy; the arrival of wireless communication; radio's transformation into network broadcasting; the introduction of television; and contemporary debates over computers, cyberspace, and virtual reality. In the process of examining the trajectory of these technological innovations, he discusses topics such as the rise of spiritualism as a utopian response to the electronic powers presented by telegraphy and how radio, in the twentieth century, came to be regarded as a way of connecting to a more atomized vision of the afterlife."--Book cover |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-247) and index |
| Subject |
Mass media -- Technological innovations -- History.
|
|
Telecommunication -- History.
|
|
Mass media and culture -- History.
|
|
Parapsychology.
|
| Genre/Form |
History.
|
| LC no. |
00029387 |
| ISBN |
9780822325727 |
|
0822325535 (cloth : alk. paper) |
|
9780822325536 (cloth : alk. paper) |
|
0822325721 (paperback : alk. paper) |
|
