The Master Switch
The Rise and Fall of Information Empires
Published on 1. November 2010
384 pages
978-0-85789-212-6 (ISBN)
Description
Winner of the 2011 Business Book of the Year Award
The Internet Age: on the face of it, an era of unprecedented freedom in both communication and culture. Yet in the past, each major new medium, from telephone to satellite television, has crested on a wave of similar idealistic optimism, before succumbing to the inevitable undertow of industrial consolidation. Every once free and open technology has, in time, become centralized and closed; as corporate power has taken control of the 'master switch.' Today a similar struggle looms over the Internet, and as it increasingly supersedes all other media the stakes have never been higher.
Part industrial expose, part examination of freedom of expression, The Master Switch reveals a crucial drama - full of indelible characters - as it has played out over decades in the shadows of global communication.
The Internet Age: on the face of it, an era of unprecedented freedom in both communication and culture. Yet in the past, each major new medium, from telephone to satellite television, has crested on a wave of similar idealistic optimism, before succumbing to the inevitable undertow of industrial consolidation. Every once free and open technology has, in time, become centralized and closed; as corporate power has taken control of the 'master switch.' Today a similar struggle looms over the Internet, and as it increasingly supersedes all other media the stakes have never been higher.
Part industrial expose, part examination of freedom of expression, The Master Switch reveals a crucial drama - full of indelible characters - as it has played out over decades in the shadows of global communication.
More details
Edition
Main
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
File size
1,48 MB
ISBN-13
978-0-85789-212-6 (9780857892126)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
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01/2012
Atlantic Books
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03/2011
Atlantic Books
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Person
Tim Wu is an author, a policy advocate, and a professor at Columbia University. A veteran of Silicon Valley, in 2006 he was recognized as one of fifty leaders in science and technology by Scientific American magazine. He won the Lowell Thomas gold medal for Travel Journalism, and has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Times and Forbes. He is also a fellow of the New America Foundation and the chairman of the media reform organization Free Press. He lives in New York.
Content
- Intro
- The Master Switch
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Introduction
- Part I: The Rise
- Chapter 1: The Disruptive Founder
- Chapter 2: Radio Dreams
- Chapter 3: Mr. Vail Is a Big Man
- Chapter 4: The Time Is Not Ripe for Feature Films
- Chapter 5: Centralize All Radio Activities
- Chapter 6: The Paramount Ideal
- Part II: Beneath the All- Seeing Eye
- Chapter 7: The Foreign Attachment
- Chapter 8: The Legion of Decency
- Chapter 9: FM Radio
- Chapter 10: Now We Add Sight to Sound
- Part III: The Rebels, the Challengers, and the Fall
- Chapter 11: The Right Kind of Breakup
- Chapter 12: The Radicalism of the Internet Revolution
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14: Broken Bell
- Chapter 15: Esperanto for Machines
- Part IV: Reborn Without a Soul
- Chapter 16: Turner Does Television
- Chapter 17: Mass Production of the Spirit
- Chapter 18: The Return of AT&T
- Part V: The Internet Against Everyone
- Chapter 19: A Surprising Wreck
- Chapter 20: Father and Son
- Chapter 21: The Separations Principle
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Index
- A Note on the Type
