Reminding us that all media were once new, this book challenges the                  notion that to study new media is to study exclusively today's new media. Examining                  a variety of media in their historic contexts, it explores those moments of                  transition when new media were not yet fully defined and their significance was                  still in flux. Examples range from familiar devices such as the telephone and                  phonograph to unfamiliar curiosities such as the physiognotrace and the zograscope.                  Moving beyond the story of technological innovation, the book considers emergent                  media as sites of ongoing cultural exchange. It considers how habits and structures                  of communication can frame a collective sense of public and private and how they                  inform our apprehensions of the "real." By recovering different (and past) senses of                  media in transition, New Media, 1740-1915 promises to deepen our historical                  understanding of all media and thus to sharpen our critical awareness of how they                  acquire their meaning and power.

New Media, 1740-1915 PDF

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