Marconi's Wireless and the Rhetoric of a New Technology [electronic resource] /
Toscano, Aaron.author.
This book examines the discourse surrounding the wireless, created by the Anglo-Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi. The wireless excited early twentieth-century audiences before it even became a viable black box technology. The wireless adhered to modernist values—speed, efficiency, militarization, and progress. Language surrounding the wireless is a form of technical communication, overlooked by today’s practitioners. This book establishes a broader definition for technical communication by examining a selection of the discourse surrounding Marconi's wireless. The book’s main themes are the following: 1) technical communication is all discourse surrounding technology, 2) the field of technical communication (or technical writing) should incorporate analyses of discourse surrounding technologies into its epistemology, 3) the wireless is a product of the society from which it comes (early twentieth-century Western civilization), and 4) the discourse surrounding the wireless is infused with tropes of progress—speed, efficiency, evolution, and ahistoricity.
Description based upon print version of record.
Includes bibliographical references.
Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. The Rhetoric of Technical Communication.-  Chapter 2. Analyzing Technology to Uncover Social Values, Attitudes, and Practices -- Chapter 3. Marconi's Representations of the Wireless -- Chapter 4. Popular Press Representations of Marconi's Wireless -- Chapter 5. Tropes of Progress in F.T. Marinetti's Early Futurist Texts -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References.
This book examines the discourse surrounding the wireless, created by the Anglo-Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi. The wireless excited early twentieth-century audiences before it even became a viable black box technology. The wireless adhered to modernist values—speed, efficiency, militarization, and progress. Language surrounding the wireless is a form of technical communication, overlooked by today’s practitioners. This book establishes a broader definition for technical communication by examining a selection of the discourse surrounding Marconi's wireless. The book’s main themes are the following: 1) technical communication is all discourse surrounding technology, 2) the field of technical communication (or technical writing) should incorporate analyses of discourse surrounding technologies into its epistemology, 3) the wireless is a product of the society from which it comes (early twentieth-century Western civilization), and 4) the discourse surrounding the wireless is infused with tropes of progress—speed, efficiency, evolution, and ahistoricity.
Social sciences.
Culture—Study and teaching.
Philosophy.
Social Sciences, general.
Regional and Cultural Studies.
Philosophy, general.
SpringerBriefs in Sociology