Media, Information and Technoculture 2000F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Claude Chappe, Morse Code, Smoke Signal
15 Apr 2016
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Hearing/reading publics (eisenstein: hearing public, communal, binding. 2: face to face paricipaion, pulpit news, religious, reading public, atomisic. Scarcity/expense wriing material: stone, clay, papyrus, parchment, calligraphy as enemy of literacy. All forms of media embody the transportaion model: whatever is being communicated has to move through a physical object. Today most media is done through the transmission model. The message is almost instant and goes through a nonphysical system: message faster than messanger. Early examples: smoke signals, drums to moivate troops in order, ship-to-ship/shore semaphore. Drawbacks: the speed and eiciency were mediocre. Could not access at night or during weather: required many employees to build and operate the towers. Samuel f. morse: alfred vail took morse"s machine and found inspiraion. Morse did not have a great knowledge in electricity so morse accepts vail"s help. Vail works on improving his machine for quite a while and basically re-designs his telegraph, making it more eicient and reliable.
