- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: Duke University Press (Aug 14 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0822325721
- ISBN-13: 978-0822325727
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.7 x 2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 499 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
-
Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#347,804 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #31 in Books > Science > Technology > Nanotechnology
- See Complete Table of Contents
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
Review
"This is a powerful, compelling, and historically informed analysis of popular representations of electronic presence. Sconce has a rare ability to write about complex cultural phenomena in a poetic fashion, offering the reader a fascinating counterpart to existing scholarship." - Michael Curtin, author of Redeeming the Wasteland: Television Documentary and Cold War Politics "Sconce offers an original and productive examination of the diverse social responses to 150 years of electronic communication. The result is an important and evocative book, notable for both its insights and its engaging style." - William Boddy, author of Fifties Television: The Industry and Its Critics
Book Description
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 generalised 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 atomised vision of the afterlife. Sconce also considers how an early preoccupation with extraterrestrial radio communications transformed during the network era into more unsettling fantasies of mediated annihilation, culminating with Orson Welles' legendary broadcast of "War of the Worlds".Likewise, in his exploration of the early years of television, Sconce describes how programs such as "The Twilight Zone" and "The Outer Limits" continued to feed the fantastical and increasingly paranoid public imagination of electronic media. Finally, Sconce discusses the rise of postmodern media criticism as yet another occult fiction of electronic presence, a mythology that continues to dominate contemporary debates over television, cyberspace, virtual reality, and the Internet. As an engaging cultural history of telecommunications, "Haunted Media" will interest a wide range of readers including students and scholars of media, history, American studies, cultural studies, and literary and social theory.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
Within a five-year span in the 1840s, the American public witnessed two of the most remarkable moments in telecommunications history. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Within a five-year span in the 1840s, the American public witnessed two of the most remarkable moments in telecommunications history. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Boy - oh Boy!,
By
This review is from: Haunted Media-PB (Paperback)
Jeffrey Sconce shows us in this, his 23rd book, that he knows what writing is all about. Have a haunted television? Is your VCR possessed? Sconce tells you what to do with easy to use instructions on getting the ghost out of your media related appliances. With stories from people around the world who have been haunted by ghostly media (including one story from a woman who was nearly strangled by her radio, possessed by a dead killer's ghostly hand) with survival tips on how to keep your tv ghost free. I'm sure I'll never have problems with spectres in my DVD player again! Thank you Mr. Sconce!
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review) 5 of 26 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Boy - oh Boy!,
By David C. Anderson "fenrisbooks" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Haunted Media-PB (Paperback)
Jeffrey Sconce shows us in this, his 23rd book, that he knows what writing is all about. Have a haunted television? Is your VCR possessed? Sconce tells you what to do with easy to use instructions on getting the ghost out of your media related appliances. With stories from people around the world who have been haunted by ghostly media (including one story from a woman who was nearly strangled by her radio, possessed by a dead killer's ghostly hand) with survival tips on how to keep your tv ghost free. I'm sure I'll never have problems with spectres in my DVD player again! Thank you Mr. Sconce!
|
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Business & Investing > Skills > Communications
- Books > Engineering > Telecommunications
- Books > Entertainment > Movies
- Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Communication
- Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Media Studies
- Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Sociology > Culture
- Books > Professional & Technical > Engineering > Telecommunications
- Books > Science > Mathematics
- Books > Science > Technology > Nanotechnology
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
