Rev. ed. of: Misunderstanding media. 1986.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 343-360) and index.

List of figures -- A storm from paradise -- technological innovation, diffusion and suppression -- The Information Revolution as hyperbole -- Modelling change -- 'Invention' -- Propagating sound at considerable distances -- The telegraph -- Scientific competence to ideation: static electrical telegraphs -- Prototypes, necessity and 'invention': dynamic electrical telegraphs -- Suppression and diffusion: owning the telegraph -- Before the speaking telephone -- Scientific competence: the telephone -- Ideation: speech transmitted by electricity -- Prototypes: electrical speaking telephones before 1877 -- The capture of sound -- Supervening necessity: the telephone and the office -- 'Invention': creating the telephone to order -- Suppression and diffusion: the telephone after 1900 -- 'Inventing' a spin-off: the record -- The vital spark and fugitive pictures -- Wireless and radio -- Scientific competence to ideation: from spark to wireless -- Necessity, diffusion and suppression: ironclads and telegrams -- 'Invention': from wireless telegraphy to radio -- Ideation and necessity: the idea of broadcasting -- Suppression and diffusion: valves/tubes, FM and cartels -- Living with radio -- Mechanically scanned television -- Scientific competence: light and electricity -- Ideation: faxes and 'fugitive pictures' -- Prototypes: mechanical scanning -- Electronically scanned television -- Invention I: electronic scanning -- Invention II: alternative electronic scanning -- Necessity and suppression: entertainment -- Suppressing television: 1935-48 -- Suppressing television: 1948 to the mid-1950s -- Television spin-offs and redundancies -- Spin-offs and redundancies: VCRs, CDs et al. -- Redundancy: 1125-line analogue television -- Inventions for casting up sums very pretty -- Mechanising calculation -- Scientific competence I: 'thinking machines' -- Scientific competence II: Babbage -- Scientific competence III: calculators -- mechanical to electrical -- Prototypes: electro-mechanical calculators -- The first computers -- Electronic prototypes I: ENIAC and 'the firing table crisis' -- Electronic prototypes II: Colossus vs. Enigma -- Ideation: 'the store' -- Supervening social necessity: the H-Bomb -- 'Invention': incunabula -- Suppressing the main frames -- No buyers -- No languages -- No babies -- The integrated circuit -- Suppression (cont.): ignoring solid state electronics -- Scientific competence: cat's whiskers to transistor -- Transistors vs. valves -- Ideation and prototype: the integrated circuit -- 'Invention': the microprocessor -- The coming of the microcomputer -- Suppression revisited: the computer industry -- Diffusion and spin-offs: PC production -- The intricate web of trails, this grand system -- The beginnings of networks -- The first wired network -- The telephone network -- Networks and recording technologies -- Broadcasting networks -- Digression: broadcasting networks and recording technologies -- Pre-satellite international radio links -- International wired links -- Communications satellites -- Scientific competence and ideation: the communications satellites -- Prototypes: low and medium orbits -- Social necessity and invention: the geostationary satellite -- Suppression: the international network -- The satellite era -- Domestic satellites -- Direct broadcast satellites -- Cable television -- The return of the wire: cable television -- The impact of domestic satellites -- The impact on broadcast television -- The Internet -- Prototypes and ideation: computer networks -- From necessity to diffusion: ARPANET to Internet -- The pile of debris -- from the Boulevard des Capucins to the Leningradsky Prospect.

Media Technology and Society offers a comprehensive account of the history of communications technologies, from the telegraph to the Internet.

Winston argues that the development of new media, from the telephone to computers, satellite, camcorders and CD-ROM, is the product of a constant play-off between social necessity and suppression: the unwritten 'law' by which new technologies are introduced into society.

Winston's fascinating account challenges the concept of a 'revolution' in communications technology by highlighting the long histories of such developments. The fax was introduced in 1847. The idea of television was patented in 1884. Digitalisation was demonstrated in 1938. Even the concept of the 'web' dates back to 1945. Winston examines why some prototypes are abandoned, why many 'inventions' are created simultaneously by innovators unaware of each other's existence, and shows how new industries develop around these inventions, providing media products for a mass audience.

Challenging the popular myth of a present-day 'Information Revolution', Media Technology and Society is essential reading for anyone interested in the social impact of technological change.