JOUR 1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Samuel Morse, Telegraphy, Cyrus West Field
19 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Drums and Wires: Telegraph Communication and Radio Broadcasting
-The telegraph helped to set the architecture of contemporary communication
-It was used 170 years ago
-Communicating on mass (trying to reach as many people as possible at the same time-
Radio)
-Or you can communicate on wire (Point to Point Communication)
-Almost all of our communications today are a mixture of drums and wires (Broadcasting
and Point to Point)
Example: a tweet
You’re sending a message to a network of individuals, but people have chosen to receive
your tweets. It is both broadcasting, and point to point
-The telegraph is the first technical communication that is invisible- electricity
-Today electricity is taken for granted- if it goes out everything that we depend on stops
working
-Georg Mathias Bose- invented the Electric Kiss in the mid 1970’s
-Samuel Morse- he was given a grant to build an experimental telegraph line from
Washington to Baltimore, Ezra Cornell was given the grant to build it
-They couldn’t lay the wire underground because they had nothing to protect it
-Cornell decided to put them above ground in glass poles- invented the telegraph pole
- Previously, information and objects travelled at the same speed
-The telegraph was being introduced to a society that was centred around the idea that
you couldn’t transfer information any faster than an object
-They didn’t understand the point of the telegraph, or how you could make it pay for
itself
-The telegraph required a web of wires to stitch the nation together- this was very
expensive, and required engineers, builders, telegraph operators- who will pay?
-What sort of information was so essential that people would pay to for it to be delivered
by telegraph instead of a letter?
-The telegraph was funded by private enterprises- not public funds (taxes), in the US
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Drums and wires: telegraph communication and radio broadcasting. The telegraph helped to set the architecture of contemporary communication. Communicating on mass (trying to reach as many people as possible at the same time- Or you can communicate on wire (point to point communication) Almost all of our communications today are a mixture of drums and wires (broadcasting and point to point) You"re sending a message to a network of individuals, but people have chosen to receive your tweets. It is both broadcasting, and point to point. The telegraph is the first technical communication that is invisible- electricity. Today electricity is taken for granted- if it goes out everything that we depend on stops working. Georg mathias bose- invented the electric kiss in the mid 1970"s. Samuel morse- he was given a grant to build an experimental telegraph line from. Washington to baltimore, ezra cornell was given the grant to build it.
