Haunted Media by Jeffrey Sconce, Paperback, 9780822325727 | Buy online at The Nile
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Haunted Media

Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television

Author: Jeffrey Sconce   Series: Console-ing Passions

Paperback

Examines the repeated association of new electronic media with spiritual phenomena from the telegraph in the late 19th century to television.

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.

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Summary

Examines the repeated association of new electronic media with spiritual phenomena from the telegraph in the late 19th century to television.

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.

Read more

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 an historical analysis of the relation between communication technologies, discourse 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 telecommunications from the mid-19th 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 20th century, came to be regarded as a way of connecting to a more atomized vision of the afterlife. Sconce also considers how an early preoccupation with extraterrestrial radio communications transformd during the network era into more unsettling fantasies of meditated annihilation, culminating with Orson Welles's legendary broadcast of "War of the Worlds". Likewise, in his exploration of the early years of television, Sconce describes how programmes 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" should interest a wide range of readers including students and scholars of media, history, American studies, cultural studies and literary and social theory.

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Critic Reviews

“"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”

"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

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About the Author

Jeffrey Sconce is Associate Professor in the Department of Radio, Television, and Film at Northwestern University.

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Back Cover

"Death, desire and distance are Jeffrey Sconce's companions in this truly spooky journey through the 'troubling afterlife of modernity.' His brilliant and beautifully written history of the uncanny powers ascribed to the electronic media is a wonderful catalogue of popular fantasies. But more profoundly it is a symptomatology of media theory too. In fact and fiction alike we are caught up in wild imaginings that seek transcendance in transmission, from the ether to the Internet. Where redemption is sought from the 'liveness' of technology, Sconce advises caution. Or, as one of the quirky spirits he unearths implores via radio, 'bring a halibut!' "-John Hartley, Queensland University of Technology

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Product Details

Publisher
Duke University Press
Published
14th August 2000
Edition
2nd
Pages
272
ISBN
9780822325727

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