Information Technologies and Social Orders

by Couch, Carl J.; Maines, David R.; Chen, Shing-Ling

• ISBN13: 9780202305158
• ISBN10: 0202305155
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-06-01
• Publisher: Aldine De Gruyter

Summary

The history of human society, as Couch recounts it in his speculative final book, is a history of successive, sometimes overlapping information technologies used to process the varied symbolic representations that inform particular social contexts. Couch departs from earlier media” theorists who ignored these contexts in order to concentrate on the technologies themselves. Here, instead, he adopts a consistent theory of interpersonal and intergroup relations to depict the essential interface between the technologies and the social contexts. In its review, Contemporary Sociology said, The volume is full of smart insights and valuable information, a fitting final effort for a scholar of great distinction.”

Table of Contents

Information and Action: An Introduction to Carl Couch's Analysis of Information Technologies
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction	p. 1
Orality	p. 17
Decorations and Depictions	p. 31
Extending Temporal Structures	p. 45
Numeric and Spatial Concepts	p. 63
Bureaucratic Structures	p. 81
Written Languages	p. 97
Printing Books	p. 117
Newspapers and State Structures	p. 137
Telecommunications: Overcoming Space	p. 159
Recorded Sounds and Sights	p. 173
Broadcasting Sounds and Sights	p. 189
Information-Processing Machines	p. 207
Knowledge Centers	p. 225
Oh, What Webs Those Phantoms Spin	p. 239
References	p. 253
Index	p. 267
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