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Contents

Preface

• The purpose of historical examination
• Kuhn's paradigm shift

Introduction

• Print media
• The Internet and hypertext

Media

• History
• McLuhan's message
• Simulacra
• No medium becomes extinct
• The commodious space of digital media

Print

• Fifteenth-century communications shift from script to print
• Scribal culture
• Textual imperialism
• The British Civil War: a revolution of the people
• Function of new media in seventeenth century
• Pamphlets become a call to arms
• The Aftermath: hierarchy reinscribed

Digital Media and the Internet

• The question of utopia
• History
• Defining the World Wide Web
• Navigating cyberspace
• Politics
• Virtual communities
• Luddites
• The future of the Net

Conclusion

Appendix

• Interview with a Luddite
• Interview with a Cyber-Enthusiast

Works Cited