From Cabling the Atlantic to Wiring the World

A Review Essay on the 150th Anniversary of the Atlantic Telegraph Cable of 1866

Bibliographic Data

ID14528290
AuthorsSimone M Müller (0000-0003-1538-3131, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume57
Issue3
Pages507-526
Publication date2016-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueTechnology and Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0040-165X • E-ISSN: 1097-3729
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/tech.2016.0069
PMID27763362
OpenAlexW2523452498
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited37

The year 2016 witnesses the 150th anniversary of laying the first successful transatlantic telegraph cables. This review essay offers a critical rereading of existing scholarship while simultaneously suggesting new perspectives for research. Telegraphy = globalization, the history of wiring the world commencing with the Atlantic cable of 1866 seems to suggest. At the same time, this essay argues, this equation should make scholars uneasy and cautious of a possible technological determinism retracing its steps back into the middle of scholarly debates on globalization. More attention needs to be paid to whose globalization we are talking about, what the globalization of politics, markets, and media means in connection to communication, and whether the cables really started something radically new. 150 years after laying the "first" Atlantic cable, there is still room for research. New spaces, theories, and methodologies, as well as alternate user groups including women and subalterns, offer avenues to test established scholarship on global communications

Globalization · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · Technological determinism · Telecommunications · Telegraphy · Engineering · Law · Media Studies and Communication

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