James W. Carey

James William Carey (7 September 1934 – 23 May 2006) was an American communication theorist, media critic, and a journalism instructor at the University of Illinois, and later at Columbia University. He was a member of the Peabody Awards Board of Jurors from 1995 to 2002. He died in 2006 at age 71. Carey is credited with developing the ritual view of communication.

In his 1989 publication, Communication As Culture, James Carey devotes a particularly compelling chapter to a seminal analysis of the telegraph. Carey looks at the telegraph as a means of communication, analysing its historical background, as well as the social and commercial changes that it triggered. In particular, Carey focuses on the way in which the telegraph was able to separate communication and transportation, the telegraph’s reconfiguration of time and space, and its effects on ideology and other aspects of social life.

Carey's focal points in his book Communication As Culture, and more specifically Chapter 8 entitled "Technology and Ideology: The Case of the Telegraph", revolved around the telegraph and its understood role in future developments in communication. The underlining argument in his essay perceives the notion that the telegraph '...permitted for the first time the effective separation of communication from transportation...'. That is, it had become possible for the message to travel faster than people, horses or trains could deliver them', '...the telegraph not only allowed messages to be separated from the physical movement of objects; it also allowed communication to control physical processes actively...'. However, he also remarks that whilst the telegraph was a watershed in communication, it only built on previous frameworks and infrastructure, '...[it] twisted and altered but did not displace patterns of connection...'(p. 204). He further elaborates on the notion with an analogy of the infrastructure of telegraph wires following the physical and natural patterns of geography.

the telegraph facilitated the growth of monopoly capitalism and imperialism, and to a wider extent the de-personalisation of business relations. Before the telegraph most business decisions were made 'face to face', compared with the faster, less personal service provided with its introduction. Indeed, the relationship between merchant to merchant was overnight transformed into one of buyer/seller, and one based on corporate hierarchy, i.e. management. As Chandler remarks, '...the visible hand of management replaced the invisible hand of the market forces where and when new technology...permitted high volume and speed of materials...' (1977).

...
Wikipedia