Writing on the Wall

Social Media—The First Two Thousand Years

Tom Standage

• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Year: 2013
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781620402849
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

From the bestselling author of A History of the World in 6 Glasses, the story of social media from ancient Rome to the Arab Spring and beyond.
Social media is anything but a new phenomenon. From the papyrus letters that Cicero and other Roman statesmen used to exchange news, to the hand-printed tracts of the Reformation and the pamphlets that spread propaganda during the American and French revolutions, the ways people shared information with their peers in the past are echoed in the present.
Standage reminds us how historical social networks have much in common with modern social media. The Catholic Church's dilemmas in responding to Martin Luther's attacks are similar to those of today's large institutions in responding to criticism on the Internet, for example, and seventeenth-century complaints about the distractions of coffeehouses mirror modern concerns about social media. Invoking figures from Thomas Paine to Vinton Cerf, co-inventor of the Internet, Standage explores themes that have long been debated, from the tension between freedom of expression and censorship to social media's role in spurring innovation and fomenting revolution. Writing on the Wall draws on history to cast provocative new light on today's social media and encourages debate and discussion about how we'll communicate in the future.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction: Cicero’s Web
• 1 The Ancient Foundations of Social Media: Why Humans Are Wired for Sharing
• 2 The Roman Media: The First Social-Media Ecosystem
• 3 How Luther Went Viral: The Role of Social Media in Revolutions (1)
• 4 Poetry in Motion: Social Media for Self-Expression and Self-Promotion
• 5 Let Truth and Falsehood Grapple: The Challenges of Regulating Social Media
• 6 And So to the Coffeehouse: How Social Media Promotes Innovation
• 7 The Liberty of Printing: The Role of Social Media in Revolutions (2)
• 8 The Sentinel of the People: Tyranny, Optimism, and Social Media
• 9 The Rise of Mass Media: The Centralization Begins
• 10 The Opposite of Social Media: Media in the Broadcast Era
• 11 The Rebirth of Social Media: From ARPANET to Facebook
• Epilogue: History Retweets Itself
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Sources
• A Note on the Author
• By the Same Author
• eCopyright