A History of Communications: Media and Society from the Evolution of Speech to the Internet. Marshall T. Poe. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 337 pp.
This has all the signs of becoming a very important book in the field, possibly a landmark study, though such global judgments will have to await both further time and more critical reaction. In any case, understand that this is by no means just another standard media history book.
A professor of history at the University of Iowa with a number of books about Russian history to his credit, Poe has developed a new theoretical approach to the wide sweep of communications change from initial efforts at speech to the present digital era.
Rather than focusing on times, events, and places—or a traditional sequence of print, film, and electronic media—Poe provides what he terms a “push” theory of communication development and then shows how it can be applied across the centuries. He argues that social demands create media change, not the other way around. In turn, media push social institutions in often (though not always) predictable directions.
In true academic fashion, Poe’s chapter titles even begin in Latin. But they cover broad chunks of time and technology, speaking of the “age” of speech, manuscripts, print, audiovisual media (meaning radio, film, television), and the Internet. In each case, they speak to what is the same and what changes with each new era of innovation.
An introduction speaks to media causes and effects, and in both text and diagrams, and outlines his basic approach, which draws initially on the ideas of Canadian economic historian Harold Innis. Several tables and charts supplement the text.
This is heady stuff, ambitious and broad-ranging, and well worth the time it takes to read the well-written material.
CHRISTOPHER H. STERLING
George Washington University