Description
Book SynopsisIn the 1980s and 1990s, the internet became a major player in the global economy and a revolutionary component of everyday life for much of the United States and the world. The author illustrates the conflicting and indirect ways in which culture and policy combined to produce this transformative technology.
Trade ReviewThe strengths of Cached: Decoding the Internet in Global Popular Culturelie in its rich, detailed, engaging, and engrossing stories of the Internet. Schulte convincingly shows technology as a product of historical legacies, as well as cultural and politics. -- Bessie Chu * International Journal of Communication *
This is the most culturally sophisticated history of the Internet yet written. We can't make sense of what the Internet means in our lives without reading Schulte's elegant account of what the Internet has meant at various points in the past 30 years. -- Siva Vaidhyanathan,Chair of the Department of Media Studies at The University of Virginia
Schulte (Univ. of Arkansas) captures the reader's attention in the first chapter by showing how the science fiction film WarGames(1983) gave the Internet both a game for teenagers and a 'potential weapon for global destruction....' A useful, scholarly resource for readers interested in the cultural development of the Internet. * Choice *
Cachedclosely captures popular struggles over the narration of computing technology, and the ensuing responses by society in both trying to dismantle as well as reinforce the boundaries of access to computer networking technologies. Schulte convincingly narrates these struggles by engaging with the changing debates on the functionalism of computing technologies. * Telecommunications Policy *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction 1 The "WarGames Scenario": Regulating Teenagers and Teenaged Technology 2 The Internet Grows Up and Goes to Work: User-Friendly Tools for Productive Adults 3 From Computers to Cyberspace: Virtual Reality, the Virtual Nation, and the CorpoNation 4 Self-Colonizing eEurope: The Information Society Merges onto the Information Superhighway5 Tweeting into the Future: Affecting Citizens and Networking Revolution Conclusion Appendix Notes Bibliography Index About the Author