The net effect romanticism, capitalism, and the internet

This book about America's romance with computer communication looks at the internet, not as harbinger of the future or the next big thing, but as an expression of the times. Streeter demonstrates that our ideas about what connected computers are for have been in constant flux since their invent...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Streeter, Thomas (-)
Formato: Libro electrónico
Idioma:Inglés
Publicado: New York : New York University Press c2010.
Edición:1st ed
Colección:Critical cultural communication.
Materias:
Ver en Biblioteca Universitat Ramon Llull:https://discovery.url.edu/permalink/34CSUC_URL/1im36ta/alma991009817329006719
Descripción
Sumario:This book about America's romance with computer communication looks at the internet, not as harbinger of the future or the next big thing, but as an expression of the times. Streeter demonstrates that our ideas about what connected computers are for have been in constant flux since their invention. In the 1950's they were imagined as the means for fighting nuclear wars, in the 1960's as systems for bringing mathematical certainty to the messy complexity of social life, in the 1970's as countercultural playgrounds, in the 1980's as an icon for what's good about free markets, in the 1990's as a new frontier to be conquered and, by the late 1990's, as the transcendence of markets in an anarchist open source utopia. The Net Effect teases out how culture has influenced the construction of the internet and how the structure of the internet has played a role in cultures of social and political thought. It argues that the internet's real and imagined anarchic qualities are not a product of the technology alone, but of the historical peculiarities of how it emerged and was embraced. Finding several different traditions at work in the development of the internet—most uniquely, romanticism—Streeter demonstrates how the creation of technology is shot through with profoundly cultural forces—with the deep weight of the remembered past, and the pressures of shared passions made articulate.
Notas:Description based upon print version of record.
Descripción Física:1 online resource (232 p.)
Bibliografía:Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:9780814741177
9780814708743