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OverviewElectric Dreams turns to the past to trace the cultural history of computers. Ted Friedman charts the struggles to define the meanings of these powerful machines over more than a century, from the failure of Charles Babbage's ""difference engine"" in the nineteenth century to contemporary struggles over file swapping, open source software, and the future of online journalism. To reveal the hopes and fears inspired by computers, Electric Dreams examines a wide range of texts, including films, advertisements, novels, magazines, computer games, blogs, and even operating systems.Electric Dreams argues that the debates over computers are critically important because they are how Americans talk about the future. In a society that in so many ways has given up on imagining anything better than multinational capitalism, cyberculture offers room to dream of different kinds of tomorrow. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Ted FriedmanPublisher: New York University Press Imprint: New York University Press Dimensions: Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 22.90cm Weight: 0.386kg ISBN: 9780814727409ISBN 10: 0814727409 Pages: 275 Publication Date: 01 December 2005 Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational , Professional & Vocational Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Manufactured on demand We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier. Table of Contents"AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Dialectic of Technological Determinism Part I Mainframe Culture1 Charles Babbage and the Politics of Computer Memory 2 Ideologies of Information Processing: From Analog to Digital3 Filming the ""Electronic Brain"" Part II The Personal Computer4 The Many Creators of the Personal Computer 5 Apple's 1984 6 The Rise of the Simulation Game Part III The Interpersonal Computer7 Imagining Cyberspace 8 Dot-com Politics 9 Beyond Napster 10 Linux and Utopia Conclusion: Cybertopia Today Notes BibliographyIndex About the Author"ReviewsElectric Dreams is a very solid cultural studies offering, smoothly written and largely steering clear of heavy-duty theory, making it an almost ideal candidate for undergraduate courses and as an introduction for newcomers to the field. --Science Fiction Reader This book is for anyone who owns or uses a computer... Computers permeate our culture, but we have little idea of where they came from and why we use them the way we do. Electric Dreams offers a mirror to our own hopes, desires, and fears, and empowers us as a community to use technology for our own benefit. --M/C Reviews [T]he general reader will thank Mr. Friedman. --Studies in American Culture Electric Dreams is at once a synthetic history of the personal computer, a history of representations of the computer, and a treatise on how to think about computing as a cultural phenomenon. Friedman's original analyses and clear style make the book a pleasure to read. --Jonathan Sterne, author of The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction This engaging but ultimately unsatisfying book examines the utopian sphere - a public forum in which alternative futures can be imagined and debated - that arose in response to computing innovations, ranging from Charles Babbage's Difference Engine to web logs --Kenneth Lipartito, Florida International University. Electric Dreams is at once a synthetic history of the personal computer, a history of representations of the computer, and a treatise on how to think about computing as a cultural phenomenon. Friedman's original analyses and clear style make the book a pleasure to read. - Jonathan Sterne, author of The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction Electric Dreams is at once a synthetic history of the personal computer, a history of representations of the computer, and a treatise on how to think about computing as a cultural phenomenon. Friedman's original analyses and clear style make the book a pleasure to read. -Jonathan Sterne,author of The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction This engaging but ultimately unsatisfying book examines the utopian sphere — a public forum in which alternative futures can be imagined and debated - that arose in response to computing innovations, ranging from Charles Babbage's Difference Engine to web logs -Kenneth Lipartito,Florida International University Electric Dreams is a very solid cultural studies offering, smoothly written and largely steering clear of heavy-duty theory, making it an almost ideal candidate for undergraduate courses and as an introduction for newcomers to the field. -Science Fiction Reader [T]he general reader will thank Mr. Friedman. -Studies in American Culture This book is for anyone who owns or uses a computer... Computers permeate our culture, but we have little idea of where they came from and why we use them the way we do. Electric Dreams offers a mirror to our own hopes, desires, and fears, and empowers us as a community to use technology for our own benefit. -M/C Reviews Author InformationTed Friedman is associate professor of communications at Georgia State University. He has contributed to Spin, Vibe, Details, and other magazines and journals. His blog can be found at http://www.tedfriedman.com. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |