Thesis ID: CBB001562733

The Public Life of Information (2011)

unapi

Rowe, Josh (Author)


Princeton University


Publication Date: 2011
Physical Details: 521 pp.
Language: English

The mid-twentieth century marked a shift in Americans' fundamental orientation toward information. Rather than news or knowledge, information became a disembodied quantum--strings of ones and zeros processed, increasingly, by complex machines. This dissertation examines how Americans became acquainted with "information", as newly conceived by science. Through the press, through mass culture (in particular, the genre of science fiction), and through the tireless evangelism of a group of self-styled visionaries, Americans encountered a new cultural icon, the computer. The "electric brain" of the 1940s and '50s promised to revolutionize the way information was handled by scientists, businessmen, and economic planners. Like the atom bomb, the computer inspired equal measures of awe and fear; information-processing machines were faster, more reliable, and potentially smarter than their organic peers. At midcentury, computer automation was rapidly spread through the American economy; many wondered if human workers (skilled and unskilled alike) would find themselves obsolete relics of a bygone industrial age? I discover that the initial alarmism gave way in the 1960s to a reimagining of the computer and its user as a mutual, cybernetic feedback system that would simultaneously improve productivity, creativity, and workers' wages. In this way, a more humanistic generation of information science "ambassadors" smoothed the computer's acceptance in American society. The computer was thus reconfigured as a user-friendly communication device that anyone, given adequate training, could employ in their work and daily lives. At the same time, human brains came to be viewed through a new prism--as soft machines excelling at the generation of ideas. The human computer, in interface with its silicon cousins, would think in more powerful ways than ever. I track the emergence of a new consensus through popular media and identify its most important exponents. The story of this idea, told through a series of reticulating biographies, helps illuminate Americans' engagement with technology, with the future, and with the nature of thought itself.

...More

Description Cited in ProQuest Diss. & Thes. : doc. no. 3452605.


Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001562733/

Similar Citations

Book Antonio Badia; (2019)
The Information Manifold: Why Computers Can't Solve Algorithmic Bias and Fake News (/isis/citation/CBB524320511/)

Book Lui, Lydia H.; (2010)
The Freudian Robot: Digital Media and the Future of the Unconscious (/isis/citation/CBB001023110/)

Book Ken Steiglitz; (2019)
The Discrete Charm of the Machine: Why the World Became Digital (/isis/citation/CBB366030595/)

Book Roberto Pieraccini; (2021)
AI Assistants (/isis/citation/CBB406160431/)

Book Mark Coeckelbergh; (2020)
AI Ethics (/isis/citation/CBB990965100/)

Book Andrew J. Stewart; (2021)
A Vulnerable System: The History of Information Security in the Computer Age (/isis/citation/CBB486585682/)

Article McCarthy, Gavan; (2011)
Mapping the Past: Building Public Knowledge Places to Meet Community Needs (/isis/citation/CBB001251178/)

Chapter Downey, Greg; (2007)
The librarian and the Univac: automation and labor at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair (/isis/citation/CBB001180032/)

Book David Parisi; (2018)
Archaeologies of Touch: Interfacing with Haptics from Electricity to Computing (/isis/citation/CBB165147793/)

Thesis Kum Hee Choy; (2021)
Neuro Symbolic Artificial Intelligence Pioneer to Overcome the Limits of Machine Learn (/isis/citation/CBB355588382/)

Chapter Downey, Greg; (2003)
The place of labor in the history of information technology revolutions (/isis/citation/CBB001180034/)

Article Malone, Cheryl Knott; (2002)
Imagining Information Retrieval in the Library: Desk Set in Historical Context (/isis/citation/CBB000300417/)

Thesis Moritz Ingwersen; (2018)
All Things Fusible: Media, Science, and Mythology in the Fiction of Neal Stephenson (/isis/citation/CBB583734163/)

Article Graham, Rebecca; (2002)
Guest Editor's Conclusion: Reflections on the Evolution of Library Computing (/isis/citation/CBB000300421/)

Article Fornes, Jordi; (2014)
Computing in Transition: The Origins of Barcelona's School of Informatics, 1976--1984 (/isis/citation/CBB001214437/)

Book Brate, Adam; (2002)
Technomanifestos: Visions from the Information Revolutionaries (/isis/citation/CBB000201659/)

Book Aspray, William F.; Hayes, Barbara M.; (2011)
Everyday information: The evolution of information seeking in America (/isis/citation/CBB001180680/)

Article Laura Leondina Campanozzi; Eugenio Guglielmelli; Eleonora Cella; Giampaolo Ghilardi; Mirta Michilli; Alfonso Molina; Massimo Ciccozzi; Vittoadolfo Tambone; (December 2019)
Building Trust in Social Robotics: A Pilot Survey (/isis/citation/CBB220307519/)

Authors & Contributors
Downey, Greg
Coeckelbergh, Mark
Massimo Ciccozzi
Kum Hee Choy
Alfonso Molina
Yezhou Yang
Concepts
Information technology
Information science
Computers and computing
Technology and society
Information theory
Methods of communication; media
Time Periods
21st century
20th century, late
20th century
19th century
18th century
Places
United States
Barcelona (Spain)
Catalonia (Spain)
Europe
Soviet Union
India
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment