Impact Of The Telegraph

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The telegraph, or the Victorian internet as Tom Standage refers to it, helped pave the way for instant communication as we know it today. Both the 19th century invention of the telegraph and the 20th century discovery of the internet had tremendous effects on the societies around them. Though separated by 100 years, both of these technological devices proved to be similar in terms of the communities each impacted and helped build, the speed with which they allowed instant communication to take place, and also through their usage of the English language in order to deliver their messages.
According to Tom Standage, there is “no invention [that] has extended its influence as fast as the electric telegraph,” (1998a, p. 105). This is supplemented …show more content…

This speed is most clearly shown in the use of email. Bolter and Grusin argue that the internet remediated the telegraph and that the internet “rel[ied] on speed of communication as the only advantage in its remediation,” (2000, p.298). In terms of speed, the internet did no more for society than the telegraph did. Both link communities in a way so that the “perception of space and time become a matter of immediacy,” (Hellemans, 2008, p. 132), meaning that you could instantly relay information to someone with no regard to time. It’s argued that electronic mail, made possible thanks to the internet, was the most popular way that the internet was even used (Bolter & Grusin, 2000, p. 298). Ducheneaut argues that “e-mail also has the potential to transform communication networks by offering anyone the capacity to communicate with everyone,” (2002, p.159). He delves into this by explaining the use of email in organizational structures. Email allows an easier way of members of management to communicate with their employees which means that because there is a way to always communicate with each other, business will always continue, regardless of what time it is. This can be shown as well through our University system where we are all required to create a @ucalgary.ca email account in order to facilitate communication between students and …show more content…

Twitter could be seen as an online and modern telegraph. The reason for that claim is because in order to send a tweet, the message must be less than 140 characters. Just like the telegraphic messages, a tweet cannot be too long and a tweet is not bound by space or time. Abbate argues that the “internet as a medium of instantaneous communication, might overcome geographic distance, but cannot simply erase political or social differences,” (1999, p. 294). The telegraph was limited to usage by the wealthy, an example of the social differences due to class which existed at the time, it can also be said that the internet and by and by, twitter facilitate or create political differences. Selin Gerit, a journalist, was live tweeting on debates taking place in Istanbul. The Mayor of Turkey's capital, Melih Gökçek was not pleased by the things that she was writing and so he created a hashtag, which is a word or phrase preceded by the '#' symbol, so that his followers could rally behind him and expose her for, as they termed it, being “a British spy,” (Genc, 2014, p.108). This shows how the political differences in Turkey has led to politicians wishing to keep their images and reputations pristine and therefore being against free speech and individuals who speak out against them or their methods of control. The power of

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