Document (#30067)

Author: Mosco, V.
Title: ¬The digital sublime : myths, power, and cyberspace
Imprint: Cambridge, MA : MIT Press
Year: 2004
Pages: 218 S
Isbn: 0-262-13439-X
Footnote: Rez. in: JASIST 57(2006) no.7, S.989-990 (K.R. Fleischmann): "In The digitaI sublime. Vincent Mosco deconstructs the myths surrounding cyberspace. He argues that instead of merely debunking these myths, as will invariably happen over time, a more productive activity is to look deeper into the roots of these myths and their ability to reproduce themselves across eras. Mosco argues that the mythical powers now ascribed to the Internet have preciously been identified with the telegraph, electrification, the telephone, radio, and television. In this book, Mosco extends and applies the theoretically sophisticated and compelling argument of the historian of technology David Nye to the information age. Nye's book, American Technological Sublime (1994), traces the mystical powers of technology throughout American history, as the natural sublime explained by myth and legend is replaced by a technological sublime founded in science. Mosco argues that the hype surrounding cyberspace is an extension of the technological sublime to the domain of the digital, and explores in detail the myths of cyberspace in comparison with those of earlier technologies. ... In summation, I would highly recommend this book to scholars interested in both the political economy and the cultural critique of information technology. This book would also make a useful and powerful reading and source of discussion for a graduate seminar, although it may be a bit too advanced and dry for undergraduate students. Perhaps the biggest question implicitIy raised by this book is - as pervasive computing draws the personal computer into the woodwork, as it were, what will be the next mythical technology" While the book does not answer this question, it does provide analytical ammunition for deconstructing and contextualizing these myths once they are inevitably brought into being."
Theme: Internet

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