26 - Technology and Networks of Communication

Summary

This chapter explores the role of communication and technology in the post-Cold War period in shaping global landscapes of power between citizens, corporations, state, and non-state actors. The history of communication networking is the story of one of the largest infrastructure projects in global history, one spearheaded during Cold War military expansion in the United States but hardly controlled by it. Despite the size and scope of this infrastructure project, it became invisible to many users and cultural commentators as computing moved physically and conceptually into “the cloud.” Indeed, understanding communication technology requires analyzing not only the story of physical infrastructure, but also the history of what Fred Turner calls “cultural infrastructures,” constructs with both ideological and structural power. Many of these cultural infrastructures find their roots in pre-Cold War innovations, which set the precedents that shaped future technologies.