Digital Universe

The Global Telecommunication Revolution

Peter B. Seel

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781119630944
• Edition: 2
• eBook ISBN:
  9781119630876
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

An illuminating examination of the benefits and drawbacks of global, digital communication 

In this newly revised Second Edition of Digital Universe: The Global Telecommunication Revolution, journalism and digital telecommunication expert Peter B. Seel delivers a fascinating and insightful exploration of digital communication technologies and their substantial effects on contemporary life. This book traces the evolution of digital information and communication tools used around the world, from undersea telegraph  cables to the newest mobile phones. 

Digital Universe introduces readers to important inventors, scientists, artists, and thinkers in its discussions of the history and socio-cultural effects of technology adoption. It offers an accessible tour of the global digital universe and provides new perspectives and critical observations on mediated human communication. The book also includes:  

• A thorough introduction to digital communication, the internet, and the origins of the world wide web 
• Comprehensive explorations of telecommunication and media convergence, including the profound effects of the adoption of wired and wireless technologies worldwide 
• Practical discussions of internet control, cyberculture, and dystopian views -- including online censorship, the loss of personal privacy, surveillance capitalism, increasing data hacks, and cyberwarfare 
• The book introduces an original concept, the Tao of Technology, that encourages readers to adopt an enhanced worldview of informed ambivalence toward the diffusion of new telecommunication technologies 
• A new chapter on artificial intelligence (A.I.) explores its application in global telecommunication and examines the biases introduced by its creators 
• In-depth examinations of new technologies, including alternative digital realities such as virtual and augmented realties, and their potential effects on the future of digital communication 

Perfect for undergraduate and graduate students in journalism, technical communication, speech communication, technology history, sociology, anthropology, computer information systems, and education; it provides the latest data on innovations in telecommunication. The second edition of Digital Universe: The Global Telecommunication Revolution will be an invaluable resource for anyone with an interest in the evolution of the internet, new telecommunication technologies, communication privacy and surveillance, the rise of social media, and the consequences of the diffusion of information and communication technologies. 

Part I
Introduction and Framing

1
Immersion in the Digital Universe

In the August 2005 issue of Wired magazine, then-editor Kevin Kelly published an essay titled “We are the Web” that was widely read by its digitally savvy audience.¹ In the essay, he made a number of predictions about what he termed “Web 2.0,” the second major iteration of the World Wide Web, which was then underway. He observed that the Web was an emergent technology before the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Netscape in 1995, but cited Eric Schmidt (then Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Sun Microsystems and later at Apple and Google) as noting that the day before the IPO the Web was nothing and afterward it was everything.

Kelly predicted that, with the rapid evolution of the Web at the time, “We would come to live inside this thing.”² Recall that he made this prediction two years before the advent of the iPhone in 2007. I think he would be astonished to look back at present and realize how prescient he was with this insight. In fact, the term “immersion” is now widely used to describe experiencing a digitally created environment in such a profound manner that users are transported by their senses into that digital universe.

The rapid evolution of the mobile phone into a “smart” phone occurred during the transition from 3G to 4G wireless technologies in the decade between 2009 and 2019.³ I would argue that this transition marked a watershed in digital immersion in that users could download hundreds of new apps that transformed the phone into a portable computer capable of doing almost everything a laptop could do at that time. This key transition, and the evolution to 5G technologies, are addressed in greater detail in Chapter 8 on mobile telephony. However, most mobile device users today take for granted the remarkable number of services provided by their phones. In fact, the first thing that connected users do on arising is check their mobile devices – and heaven forbid that they have forgotten to recharge the battery overnight. Our smart phones often recharge on a bedside table next to a smart speaker that can provide the day’s weather forecast or the news headlines with a simple audible request to Alexa, Siri, or Google for more information. We do “live inside this thing,” as Kevin Kelly stated in 2005, and in ways that even the most ardent technophiles could not have predicted then.

The Social Media Universe

The routine daily use of online social media did not exist in 2005, as Facebook did not allow anyone without an . edu email address to join until 2006. In fact, telecommunication users prior to 2005 would not understand the specific meaning of any of these now-commonplace social media and online communication terms:

Astroturfing Boomerang Cancelling Chatbot Clickbait Doxing FOMO Friending Gaslighting	Geotag #Hashtag Influencer Instagramming Newsjacking Phishing Regram Selfie	Stan Subtweet Thread Trolling Unfriending Upvote UX Vlog
See the glossary in the front of this book for definitions to these commonly used words and technical terms and abbreviations in this text.

Technology writer Clive Thompson credits the advent of Twitter as a new social media tool in 2006 with the arrival of a new “Age of Awareness.”⁴ Twitter was criticized at the time by some of the technocenti as a superficial communication tool due to the then-140-character limit on a single message. Thompson noted that author Tim Ferris referred to Twitter at the outset as “pointless email on steroids” and commented sardonically that Ferris today has 1.54 million Twitter followers. The user who did the most to highlight the power and reach of Twitter was the 45th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump. He discovered early in his career as a reality television host between 2004 and 2015, that he could bypass what he termed the “fake” mass media by reaching out directly to his online fan base through Twitter. While political commentators have noted that Twitter is perhaps not an ideal communication tool for conducting foreign policy by a head of government, its usage in the United States has expanded dramatically since its inception in 2006. Twitter’s 126 million daily users now include citizens from all walks-of-life and include media celebrities, companies, athletes, politicians, and media executives.⁵

Thompson states that the rise of Twitter in 2006 “represented a massive shift in the way that we pay attention to one another. The status update took off and we entered the era we still inhabit: the age of awareness.”⁶ While emails are often lengthy and infrequent, Twitter messages were brief by comparison and status updates could be posted by the hour. Following someone on Twitter (or other social media sites as they emerged after 2006) was like engaging in a stream of consciousness with that individual. Thompson said that, “It was like hearing them talk out loud all day long,” a trait that critics of then-president Trump complained about – during his first impeachment hearing in the US Senate in 2019, he posted a record 142 Tweets criticizing his trial.⁷

Trump’s Twitter usage notwithstanding, it has provided a voice for the disenfranchised in both positive and negative ways, as hashtags became shorthand for communication campaigns worldwide. The #blacklivesmatter and #metoo movements used social media to mobilize their activists and communicate their urgent messages to wider publics. In line with the Tao of Technology theme cited throughout this book, that the positive and negative effects of communication technologies are inseparable, the global use of social media provides numerous examples of negative antisocial uses. The #gamergate shaming of female e-game experts and the adoption of social media as a communication tool by hate and terrorist groups worldwide has fueled angst by those who viewed the promise of digital telecommunication as an essential tool to bridge gaps between diverse groups within and between nations.

Another problem with this age of awareness, according to Thompson, is that “it makes us prisoners of the here and now.” In other words, the never-ending 24/7 cycles of constantly “breaking” news and constant social media posts provide little respite from the tidal wave of information accessed on our mobile devices and at home. He cites Canadian media theorist Harold Innis as predicting that modern communication technology would make society “‘present-minded’ and unable to focus on anything except what is happening right now.”⁸ (see Chapter 7 for more on Innis, telecommunication, and empires). Anyone who has social media alerts transmitted to their mobile phones or their office computers is intimately familiar with the distractions they cause. Table 1.1 charts the global diffusion of social media since 2002.

Table 1.1 The global diffusion of social media since 2002

Site	Year widely available online	Founders	Active monthly users (2020)	Employees (2020)
LinkedIn *	2002	Reid Hoffman, Allen Blue, Konstantin Guericke, Jean-Luc Valliant, Eric Ly	772 million	15,800
Twitter	2006	Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Noah Glass, Biz Stone	321 million	4,600
Facebook	2006	Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes	2.7 billion	52,534
WhatsApp **	2009	Jan Koum, Brian Acton	2 billion	**
Instagram **	2010	Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger	1 billion	5,275
Snapchat	2011	Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, Reggie Brown	238 million	2,734
Tik Tok	2016	ByteDance – Zhang Yiming	800 million	6,500
* LinkedIn was purchased by Microsoft in 2016 for $26.2 billion. ** Now owned by Facebook. WhatsApp employees are included in Facebook’s count.

These digital tools have provided the potential for a type of super-human intelligence due to the relatively eas...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Key Terms and Abbreviations
• Part I Introduction and Framing
• Part II Internet and Web History
• Part III Global Telecommunication and Media Convergence
• Part IV Internet Control, Cyberculture, and Dystopian Views
• Part V New Communication Technologies and the Future
• End User License Agreement