Webs, Networks, and Systems: Globalization and the Mass Media in the Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century British Empire
Webs, Networks, and Systems: Globalization and the Mass Media in the Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century British Empire
复制标题
网络、网络和系统:十九世纪和二十世纪大英帝国的全球化和大众媒体
DOI:
10.1086/515446
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发表时间:
2007
影响因子:
1
通讯作者:
S. Potter
中科院分区:
文献类型:
--
作者:
S. Potter
W have of late been encouraged to think of Britain’s imperial past in terms of “webs” and “networks.” Scholars of contemporary globalization, seeking precedent for current perceived trends, have used these labels to describe how different parts of the British Empire were linked together during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They argue that the mass media played a particularly significant role in sustaining such patterns of interconnection and, as a result, in forging transnational identities. According to this interpretation, new communications technologies such as telegraphs and submarine telegraph cables allowed news and opinion to be disseminated more rapidly and more freely. Subsequently, this interpretation maintains, radio and television came to act as an even more powerful media of transnational communication, encouraging people to think of themselves as members of global communities. Historians of the British Empire have recently also begun to write about webs and networks and to discuss the role of the mass media in creating imperial communities. In particular, historians of the early nineteenth century have shown how groups of white settlers used newspapers to communicate information and opinion to audiences in Britain and other parts of the empire. Some of these historians argue that, in the process, settlers rehearsed claims to membership in a global British community and discussed ideas about the nature of “Britishness.” As will be discussed below, in deploying a “networked conception” scholars of globali-