{"id":39427,"date":"2021-06-24T03:25:29","date_gmt":"2021-06-24T07:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=39427"},"modified":"2021-06-25T08:30:45","modified_gmt":"2021-06-25T12:30:45","slug":"history-of-the-telegraph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/history-of-the-telegraph\/","title":{"rendered":"History of the Telegraph: How It Eliminated Relevance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How did the invention of the electronic telegraph undermine print-based discourse? How did the inclusion of photography add to the telegraph\u2019s assault on print culture<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The electronic telegraph was invented to send messages over long distances and create the opportunity for a national conversation. But in the process, the relevance of information was undermined and newspapers started printing decontextualized information. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep reading to learn about the history of the telegraph and how it paved the way for the entertainment era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The Invention of the Telegraph<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Two technological developments in the mid-19th century changed public discourse<\/a> and paved the way for the Age of Entertainment<\/strong>. The first was the invention of the telegraph, which removed the constraints on communication of speed and distance; the second was the development of photography, which replaced words with images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The history of the telegraph began in the mid-19th century. By then, America had expanded to the Pacific. However, the difficulties of communicating over long distances limited national cohesion\u2014the nation was a patchwork of regions with their own interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem was solved with the invention of the electrical telegraph, which could send messages over long distances in the form of coded pulses of electrical current transmitted through wires. By connecting the country with a communication network, the telegraph created the opportunity for a national conversation. But in the process, it redefined information and changed the meaning of public discourse altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Redefining Information<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The telegraph undermined the key components of print-based discourse: relevance, usefulness, and coherence<\/strong>, which are closely related. These effects were exacerbated by newspapers\u2014the penny press of the 1830s developed hand-in-hand with the telegraph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making Relevance Irrelevant<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The telegraph changed the definition of information by eliminating the requirement that it be relevant to the recipient<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henry David Thoreau was one of the first to recognize that while the telegraph could send information great distances at lightning speed, a lot of what it sent might not be especially relevant to those on the receiving end. For instance, he wrote that connecting the old world with the new by running wires under the Atlantic was a dubious accomplishment if the system was used merely to report that Princess Adelaide had the whooping cough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newspapers played a role by seizing on the opportunity to obtain and publish information from far-flung places. Previously, they had focused mostly on community information relevant to local issues and decisions. But they soon began promoting non-local information received by telegraph and giving it greater prominence. Publishers rushed to back efforts to fully wire the nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon after the telegraph system spread, the Associated Press was founded in 1846 to gather information from around the world and disseminate it to everyone. Relevance had become irrelevant. Crimes, disasters, and wars, and other telegraphic content, were packaged and presented as \u201cthe news of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commodifying Information<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The telegraph and newspapers also decontextualized information and turned it into a commodity<\/strong>. It didn\u2019t need to have a value to the recipient or serve any local purpose other than stirring interest or curiosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In oral and print-based cultures, information\u2019s importance depended on its utility or the possibility it presented for action. You could do something with it to affect your life or community. However, the telegraph and subsequent technologies have disconnected information from action<\/strong>. We have an information glut and, at the same time, a diminished sense of agency<\/a> or control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, the \u201dnews of the day\u201d (unless it\u2019s the weather forecast) rarely prompts you to do anything or helps you solve a problem. The news is something to talk about, but you can\u2019t respond in any meaningful way. For instance, you can\u2019t do anything about Middle East conflict, the crime rate, or unemployment. When the context is global, information disempowers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making Discourse Incoherent<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Besides eliminating relevance and value, the telegraph undermined public discourse by making it incoherent.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Print culture\u2019s strength is the exposition and analysis of information. The telegraph\u2019s strength was simply moving information fast. Messages were quickly replaced by new messages with no connection to what came before or after. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intelligence no longer meant understanding context or implications. It simply meant knowing a lot of disparate, fleeting things in the form of sensational headlines. The telegraph created a disorderly, disconnected conversation of strangers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Images Overtake Words<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Adding to the telegraph\u2019s assault on print culture and coherence was the development of photography in the 1840s and \u201850s, starting with the daguerreotype. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The early process of producing photos was complicated, involving an iodine-sensitized silvered plate and mercury vapor. But it soon evolved to a more efficient process<\/a> of preparing a negative from which multiple positives could be made. Mass printing and publication of photos followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like the telegraph, photos eliminate context. Photography removes images from context to present them<\/strong> in a different light<\/strong>. A photograph represents only an instant; it presents the world as disconnected moments or events. Photos can\u2019t present ideas, only isolated objects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Images have been around since the days of cave paintings, and they coexisted with words until photography launched an all-out war on language. Imagery\u2014which quickly permeated American culture as photos, illustrations, posters, and advertisements\u2014began to displace print in shaping our understanding of the world. While print culture viewed the world as rational, the growing image-based culture viewed it as chaotic and disconnected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The image helped redefine information and news<\/strong> as having no continuity or importance apart from entertainment. \u201cNews\u201d magazines such as Life<\/em> and Look <\/em>showcased dramatic or glamorous photographs lacking newsworthiness. Newspapers and advertisers learned that attention-grabbing images had a greater impact than explanatory writing. Seeing became more persuasive than reading and thinking<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Joint Effects of the Telegraph and Photography<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The partnership of photography and the telegraph reshaped the news. Photos gave concreteness to faraway datelines. A photo, news story, and headline together created a feeling of context, but without any past or sense of continuity. It was a \u201cpseudo-context,\u201d created for information of no value beyond entertainment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, since we still can\u2019t use fragmented information for anything serious, we use it for entertainment and distraction\u2014for example, in crossword puzzles, TV game shows, and games like Trivial Pursuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photography and the telegraph didn\u2019t kill print culture immediately\u2014there was a burst of great literature in the early 20th century including magazine stories and novels by Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Hemingway, and others. But the era was print culture\u2019s swan song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A New Discourse<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The electronic media that developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries\u2014television, film, and radio\u2014accelerated the trends begun by the telegraph and photography. They created a disjointed, senseless world, where events constantly pop up and disappear from our view. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By providing a constant stream of compelling images unrelated to our lives, television culture has turned us from engaged citizens to a passive audience waiting to be entertained. Television tells us reality or life isn\u2019t rational, so it must be entertaining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Entertainment, in itself, isn\u2019t a problem. The problem is that television and its metaphor of reality as entertainment have taken over our homes and reshaped every aspect of public life<\/strong>\u2014education, religion, science, sports, news, and business\u2014and how we understand it. We\u2019ve come to judge everything by its entertainment value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Television has attained myth status\u2014a myth being a way of thinking so ingrained in our consciousness that we\u2019re no longer aware of it. We don\u2019t think about how television works or what it can do. We don\u2019t think about how it affects us or our culture. It <\/strong>is<\/em><\/strong> our culture<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Television has become the background sound of our lives. The world it creates seems familiar and natural. We don\u2019t notice how it shapes what we believe to be the truth or reality. When something doesn\u2019t seem strange, it means we\u2019ve adjusted to it by changing ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve so completely accepted television\u2019s metaphor of reality that we mistake its irrelevance for substance and its incoherence for meaning. Anything that doesn\u2019t fit television\u2019s frame seems strange rather than the other way around. (Shortform note: Postman doesn\u2019t give examples, but a contemporary example would be how we dismiss and \u201ctune out\u201d public officials who discuss nuances of issues; instead, we expect them to speak in entertaining sound bites.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The purpose of this book is to make visible television\u2019s epistemology\u2014how it shapes truth, knowledge, and reality, and how it\u2019s transforming our national culture and conversation into entertainment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How did the invention of the electronic telegraph undermine print-based discourse? How did the inclusion of photography add to the telegraph\u2019s assault on print culture? The electronic telegraph was invented to send messages over long distances and create the opportunity for a national conversation. But in the process, the relevance of information was undermined and newspapers started printing decontextualized information. Keep reading to learn about the history of the telegraph and how it paved the way for the entertainment era.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":39802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,39,24],"tags":[389],"class_list":["post-39427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communication","category-history","category-society","tag-amusing-ourselves-to-death","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nHistory of the Telegraph: How It Eliminated Relevance - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The history of the telegraph is complicated. It allowed for a national conversation, but also decontextualized the news. 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