Dynamics of Modern Communication
The Shaping and Impact of New Communication Technologies
- Patrice Flichy - Universite De Marne-La-Valle
From the semaphore and telegraph to contemporary information technologies, Dynamics of Modern Communication focuses on the relationship between technological and social change. Particular emphasis is put on four processes: the birth of the modern state at the end of the eighteenth century; the development of stock markets; the transformation of private life in the modern nuclear family; and the individualism of the late twentieth century.
Exploring the interaction of technology and social context - for example, in the move from public methods of communication to more private and individualized forms - Flichy exposes the gap between the original conception of a technology and its end use after the interplay of political, economic and consumer forces.
`Focusing on the relationship between technological and social change, this study offers a comprehensive social history of communication technologies from 1790 to the present' - International Review of Social History
`A scholarly, analytical assessment which makes substantial contributions to our theoretical understanding of new communication technologies.... The editors of the Media, Culture & Society series of SAGE have done us a great service by arranging for the translation and re-publication of the volume.... The "shelf life" and scholarly value of Dynamics will, without doubt, far surpass that of more fashionable publications' - Communicatiewetenschap
