Les révolutions de la communication XIXe-XXe siècle by Pascal Griset, and

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 457 Les révolutions de la communication XIXe—XXe siècle. By Pascal Griset. Paris: Hachette, 1991. Pp. 255; bibliography. F79.00 (paper). Une histoire de la communication moderne: Espace public et vie privée. By Patrice Flichy. Paris: Éditions La Découverte, 1991. Pp. 281; notes, bibliography, index. F145.00 (paper). La communication par la bande: Introduction aux sciences de l’information et de la communication. By Daniel Bougnoux. Paris: Éditions La Décou­ verte, 1991. Pp. 272; glossary, bibliography, index. F125.00 (paper). Studying the history of communications technologies is difficult because the very concept of communication is of doubtful coherence. Does it make sense to examine from the same point of view topics as diverse as the telegraph and television, or photography and advertis­ ing, or linguistics and electronics? Three books recently published in French address “communication” in three very different ways, appar­ ently as a consequence of conceptual uncertainties. Pascal Griset’s Les révolutions de la communication XIXe—XXe siècle takes as its main thread the traditional genealogy of technics—telegraph, telephone, radio, television, computers—and puts these technologies in the context of state interventionism in the 19th century, the rise of propaganda in the 1930s, and recent industrial policies. The book is accurate, brief, and didactic, and it devotes considerable attention to American history. Patrice Flichy, author of Une histoire de la communication moderne, is a sociologist who has previously indicated a special interest in the uses of media. His wide-ranging survey is marked by a refusal to consider recent communications technologies “revolutionary” in terms of the organiza­ tion of work, democracy, or the relationship between the public sphere and the private. Rather, he seeks to trace historical continuities, the links among different media, and the choices among different uses. His book is divided into three parts. The first covers the transition between 1790 and 1870 from state communication to market communication. The second, from 1870 to 1930, deals with radio and the distinctions between family communication and professional communication. The third ad­ dresses the birth of electronics and the transition from family commu­ nication to individual communication. For a readerwho is unfamiliarwith the technological chronology and institutional history, it may not always be easy to perceive the coherence of this global evolutionary scheme. Nevertheless, there are many interesting observations about such matters as the distinction between the gramophone, which was intended for wide diffusion from the outset, and the telephone, which (like the auto) did not find ready markets at first. These two books are both organized chronologically, built on the his­ torical progression of technology. But Daniel Bougnoux’s La communi­ cation par la bande adopts the opposite point of view. A philosopher, Bougnoux inventories the main concepts and methods actually used in 458 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE the “information and communication sciences” and tests them for his­ torical relevance. His introduction refers to five disciplines: semiology, “the general science of signs”; pragmatics, by means of which one can elucidate social aspects and effects of power in the acts of language (a la M. SerresandB. Latour); the “mediology” ofR. Debray, who is especially concerned with the material conditions of production and propagation of ideas; cybernetics, by means of which “each organization can be in­ terpreted as a combination of messages”; and psychoanalysis, a means of studying the various dimensions of seduction. Bougnoux asks questions that are both obvious and too often neglected. Regarding technological determinism—the idea that an innovation can survive only if it makes sense in an economic, technological, social, and cultural context—he asks whether we are sure we always study all its dimensions. On the genealogy which leads from painting to photography, cinema, and television, he asks what is really different about these ways of representing reality. The use of semiological categories such as indice, icon, and symbol enables Bougnoux to draw distinctions that historians oftechnology perceive only intuitively. La communication par la bande may be difficult reading for people unfamiliar with recent French and American philosophy. Never­ theless, it should prove stimulating for any specialist in the history of communications technologies. Catherine Bertho Lavenir Ms. Lavenir, a specialist in

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