1. Permitted separation of communication from transportation (157)
1.1. allowed messages to be separated from the physical movement of objects & allowed communication to control physical processes actively
1.1.1. I.e railroad signalling
1.2. freed communication from the constraints of geography
2. Transmission Model: a model for thinking about communication (157)
2.1. changed the fundamental ways that communication was thought of, not just altering the relation bt comm & transportation
3. a new tool of commerce AND a thing to think with - an agency for the alteration of ideas (157)
4. 3 relationships between the telegraph & ideology (158-161)
4.1. the relationship between the telegraph & monopoly capitalism
4.1.1. before the telegraph: business relations were personal (face-to-face relations, personal correspondence, contacts among people who knew each other as actual people
4.1.2. the volume and speed of transactions demanded a new form of organization of essentially impersonal relations
4.2. popular imagery (largely religious) that accompanied the telegraph's introduction
4.3. mixture of science, commerce, politics, & pious religious unity that surfaced in popular consciousness with the telegraph
5. the effect on ordinary ideas (162-)
5.1. "The effect of the telegraph on ordinary ideas: the coordinates of thought, the natural attitude, practical consciousness, or, less grandly, common sense."
5.1.1. The effects on language and journalism
5.1.1.1. reworked the nature of written language and finally the nature of awareness itself
5.1.1.2. the telegraph led to a fundamental change in news
5.1.1.2.1. the wire services demanded a form of language stripped of the local, the regional; and the colloquial
5.1.1.2.2. language had to be flattened out and standardized
5.1.1.3. the telegraph changed the forms of social relations mediated by language
5.1.1.3.1. just as the long lines displaced a personal relation mediated by speech & correspondence in the conduct of trade & substituted the mechanical coordination of buyer and seller, so the language of the telegraph displaced a fiduciary relationship between writer and reader with a coordinated one
5.1.1.4. the telegraph eliminated the correspondent who provided letters that announced an event, described it in detail, and analyzed its substance, and replaced him with the stringer who supplied the bare facts
5.1.1.4.1. separated the observer from the writer (bc words were expensive)
5.1.1.5. effected news: news judgement had to be routinized and the organization of the newsroom made factory-like
5.1.1.5.1. the spareness of the prose and the sheer volume of it allowed news (forced) to be treated like a commodity: something that could be transported, measured, reduced and timed
5.1.2. the domain of empire
5.1.2.1. the role of the telegraph in coordinating military, particularly naval, operations: the transition from colonialism, where power and authority rested with the domestic governor, to imperialism, where power and authority were reabsorbed by the imperial capital
6. New England --> industrial America by 3 improvements in transportation & communication
7. brought changes in the nature of language, ordinary knowledge & structure of awareness (156)
7.1. thought could travel by "the singing wire" --> a new form of reporting & a new form of knowledge, replaces traditional literature w a new & active form of scientific knowledge
8. consequences (relates to SM) 157
8.1. altered boundaries of human interaction
8.2. brought into existence new forms of language & new conceptual systems
8.3. brought new structures of social relations
8.3.1. brings new social hierarchy bc of followers, likes, etc
8.4. fostered a new middle class
8.5. older forms of writing declined
8.6. traditional social interactions waned
8.7. the city-state capitalism was broken up
9. Ideas about relations
9.1. "catfishing"
9.1.1. people got married through telegraph & got tricked. Same happens through instagram
9.2. shorthand, changing language
9.3. less personal form of communication
9.3.1. no longer needed face to face or actual relationships
10. The telegraph & time
10.1. the telegraph led to consistent and set time zones (171-)
10.1.1. changed consciousness as social media changes the way that we perceive time (posting times, passing of time, etc.)