Communication and Empire

Winseck Dwayne R. Winseck, Pike Robert M. Pike

Description

Filling in a key chapter in communications history, Dwayne R. Winseck and Robert M. Pike offer an in-depth examination of the rise of the "global media" between 1860 and 1930. They analyze the connections between the development of a global communication infrastructure, the creation of national telegraph and wireless systems, and news agencies and the content they provided. Conventional histories suggest that the growth of global communications correlated with imperial expansion: an increasing number of cables were laid as colonial powers competed for control of resources. Winseck and Pike argue that the role of the imperial contest, while significant, has been exaggerated. They emphasize how much of the global media system was in place before the high tide of imperialism in the early twentieth century, and they point to other factors that drove the proliferation of global media links, including economic booms and busts, initial steps toward multilateralism and international law, and the formation of corporate cartels.Drawing on extensive research in corporate and government archives, Winseck and Pike illuminate the actions of companies and cartels during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, in many different parts of the globe, including Africa, Asia, and Central and South America as well as Europe and North America. The complex history they relate shows how cable companies exploited or transcended national policies in the creation of the global cable network, how private corporations and government agencies interacted, and how individual reformers fought to eliminate cartels and harmonize the regulation of world communications. In Communication and Empire, the multinational conglomerates, regulations, and the politics of imperialism and anti-imperialism as well as the cries for reform of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth emerge as the obvious forerunners of today's global media.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Social theory
• Media studies

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 17 juillet 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822389996
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 9 Mo

Extrait

C O M M U N I C A T I O N A N D E M P I R E

A ME R I C A N E N C O U N T E R S / G L O B A L I N T E R A C T I O N S AserieseditedbyGilbertM.JosephandEmilyS.Rosenberg

∫2007 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper$

Designed by Jennifer Hill. Typeset in Minion Pro by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.

ToForest,themostbeautifulandwonderfuldaughterafather couldwishfor.Thankyouforallyourpatienceandinspirationwhile thefollowingpageswerebroughttofruition. Dwayne

TomywifeFayeandchildrenEleanorandChristopher.Thankyouall foryourloveandyourpatiencewithmymentalabsences. Bob

Contents

About the Series Illustrations Tables Preface and Acknowledgments

Introduction: Deep Globalization and the Global Media in the Late Nineteenth Century and Early Twentieth

1Building the Global Communication Infrastructure: Brakes and Accelerators on New Communication Technologies, 1850–70

2From the Gilded Age to the Progressive Era: The Struggle for Control in the Euro-American and South American Communication Markets, 1870–1905

3Indo-European Communication Markets and the Scrambling of Africa: Communication and Empire in the ‘‘Age of Disorder’’

4Electronic Kingdom and Wired Cities in the ‘‘Age of Disorder’’: The Struggle for Control of China’s National and Global Communication Capabilities, 1870–1901

5The Politics of Global Media Reform I, 1870–1905: The Early Movements against Private Cable Monopolies

6The Politics of Global Media Reform II, 1906–16: Rivalry and Managed Competition in the Age of Empire(s) and Social Reform

7Wireless, War, and Communication Networks, 1914–22

ix xi xiii xv

1

1

6

4

9

3

2

113

142

177

228

viii

8Thick and Thin Globalism: Wilson, the Communication Experts, and the American Approach to Global Communication, 1918–22

C O N T E N T S

9Communication and Informal Empires: Consortia and the Evolution of South American and Asian Communication Markets, 1918–30

10The Euro-American Communication Market and Media Merger Mania: New Technology and the Political Economy of Communication in the 1920s

Conclusions: The Moving Forces of the Early Global Media

Notes Bibliography Index

257

277

304

338

347 379 403

About the Series

This series aims to stimulate critical perspectives and fresh interpretive frame- works for scholarship on the history of the imposing global presence of the United States. Its primary concerns include the deployment and contesta- tion of power, the construction and deconstruction of cultural and politi- cal borders, the fluid meanings of intercultural encounters, and the com- plex interplay between the global and the local. American Encounters seeks to strengthen dialogue and collaboration between historians of U.S. inter- national relations and area studies specialists. The series encourages scholarship based on multiarchival historical re- search. At the same time, it supports a recognition of the representational character of all stories about the past and promotes critical inquiry into issues of subjectivity and narrative. In the process, American Encounters strives to understand the context in which meanings related to nations, cultures, and political economy are continually produced, challenged, and reshaped.