Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television (Console-ing Passions)
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.56 (902 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0822325721 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 272 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-02-13 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Sconce also considers how an early preoccupation with extraterrestrial radio communications tranformed during the network era into more unsettling fantasies of mediated annihilation, culminating with Orson Welles’s legendary broadcast of War of the Worlds. 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. 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
But more profoundly it is a symptomatology of media theory too. “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. Or, as one of the quirky spirits he unearths implores via radio, ‘bring a halibut!’ ”—John Hartley, Queensland University of Technology. In fact and fiction alike we are caught up in wild imaginings that seek transcendance in transmission, from the ether to t
Boy - oh Boy! David C. Anderson 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