The Soft Edge

With an estimated 50 million users of the internet worldwide today, rapid advancements in technological communication are always wide-reaching and anticipated. While today we expect continuous innovations, history shows the startling impact advancements have on society is not just recent. The Soft Edge provides an engaging tour of how communications media have been responsible for major developments in history and for the significant changes in our personal and social lives today. Paul Levinson shows how information technologies influence events in decisive ways at crucial times in history and how they are selected for survival based on how well they accommodate human needs. Using often original and unusual interpretations of historic events, such as the influence of the printing press on the spread of the Protestant Reformation, Levinson also details the technologies that survived in spite of further advancements, including the radio and word processor, after the advent of television and the internet. Although the media frequently surprise us in their impact, people nonetheless have the capacity to control their effects, via what Levinson calls, remedial media--the VCR, text online. The evidence of this book thus runs contrary to current critiques of mass media and computers, and demonstrates how the information revolution is becoming increasingly human, fulfilling our natural inclinations yet subject to our rational direction. In addition to being a history of media developments, The Soft Edge provides up-to-date commentary and analysis on issues including pornography on the internet, intellectual property matters, and the Communications Decency Act, that are unfolding right now. By presenting both pivotal examples throughout history and recent events, Levinson brilliantly displays the role new media plays in society, the effects that human choice has on this (r)evolution, and what's in store for us in the future.