The Struggle for Control of Global Communication: The Formative Century (The History of Media and Communication) - Hardcover

Hills, Jill

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0252027574 ISBN 13: 9780252027574

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 2002

Synopsis

Tracing the development of communication markets and the regulation of international communications from the 1840s through World War I, Jill Hills examines the political, technological, and economic forces at work during the formative century of global communication. 

Hills analyzes power relations within the arena of global communications from the inception of the telegraph through the successive technologies of submarine telegraph cables, ship-to-shore wireless, broadcast radio, shortwave wireless, the telephone, and movies with sound. As she shows, global communication began to overtake transportation as an economic, political, and social force after the inception of the telegraph, which shifted communications from national to international. From that point on, information was a commodity and ownership of the communications infrastructure became valuable as the means of distributing information. The struggle for control of that infrastructure occurred in part because British control of communications hindered the growing economic power of the United States. 

Hills outlines the technological advancements and regulations that allowed the United States to challenge British hegemony and enter the global communications market. She demonstrates that control of global communication was part of a complex web of relations between and within the government and corporations of Britain and the United States. Detailing the interplay between American federal regulation and economic power, Hills shows how these forces shaped communications technologies and illuminates the contemporary systems of power in global communications.

About this title

About the Author

 Jill Hills, a professor in the School of Communication and Creative Industries at the University of Westminster, is the author of Deregulating Telecoms, Information Technology and Industrial Policy, and Telecommunications and Empire.
 

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0252027574
• ISBN 13: 9780252027574
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 344