Down to Earth presents the first comprehensive overview of the geopolitical manoeuvres, financial investments, technological innovations, and ideological struggles that take place behind the scenes of the satellite industry. satellite projects that have not received extensive coverage-micro satellites in China, Worldspace in south Africa, siriusXM, the failures of USA 193 and Cosmos 954, and Iridium- are explored. This collection takes readers on a voyage through a truly global industry, from the sites where satellites are launched to the corporate clean rooms where they are designed, and along the orbits and paths that satellites traverse. Combining a practical introduction to the mechanics of the satellite industry, a history of how its practices and technologies have evolved, and a sophisticated theoretical analysis of satellite cultures, Down to Earth opens up a new space for global media studies.

The completion of the Transcontinental Telegraph in 1861 completed telegraphy's mile-by-mile trek across the West. In addition to linking the coasts, the telegraph represented an extraordinary American effort in many fields of endeavor to know, act upon, and control a continent. Merging new research with bold interpretation, James Schwoch details the unexplored dimensions of the frontier telegraph and its impact. The westward spread of telegraphy entailed encounters with environments that challenged Americans to acquire knowledge of natural history, climate, and a host of other fields. Telegraph codes and ciphers, meanwhile, became important political, military, and economic secrets. Schwoch shows how the government's use of commercial networks drove a relationship between the two sectors that served increasingly expansionist aims. He also reveals the telegraph's role in securing high ground and encouraging surveillance. Both became vital aspects of the American effort to contain, and conquer, the West's indigenous peoples—and part of a historical arc of concerns about privacy, data gathering, and surveillance that remains pertinent today. Entertaining and enlightening, Wired into Nature explores an unknown history of the West.

The completion of the Transcontinental Telegraph in 1861 completed telegraphy's mile-by-mile trek across the West. In addition to linking the coasts, the telegraph represented an extraordinary American effort in many fields of endeavor to know, act upon, and control a continent. Merging new research with bold interpretation, James Schwoch details the unexplored dimensions of the frontier telegraph and its impact. The westward spread of telegraphy entailed encounters with environments that challenged Americans to acquire knowledge of natural history, climate, and a host of other fields. Telegraph codes and ciphers, meanwhile, became important political, military, and economic secrets. Schwoch shows how the government's use of commercial networks drove a relationship between the two sectors that served increasingly expansionist aims. He also reveals the telegraph's role in securing high ground and encouraging surveillance. Both became vital aspects of the American effort to contain, and conquer, the West's indigenous peoples-and part of a historical arc of concerns about privacy, data gathering, and surveillance that remains pertinent today. Entertaining and enlightening, Wired into Nature explores an unknown history of the West.

James Schwoch presents a unique retelling of the Cold War period by examining the relationship of global television, diplomacy, and new electronic communications media. Beginning with the Allied occupation of Germany in 1946 and ending with the 1969 Apollo moon landing, this book explores major developments in global media, including the postwar absorption of the International Telecommunications Union into the United Nations and its impact on both television and international policy; the rise of psychological warfare and its relations to new electronic media of the 1950s; and the role of the Ford Foundation in shaping global communication research concepts. Drawing on work in media studies, diplomatic history, and science and technology studies, Schwoch analyzes the way in which global media has been characterized, emphasizing a discursive shift away from a framework of east-west security and, by the 1960s, toward a framework of world citizenship and globalization. The global growth of television and other new electronic media occurred in conjunction with the ongoing tensions of the Cold War, as superpowers searched for ways to extend their influence beyond traditional borders of nation-states and into the extraterritorialities of planet Earth.

Down to Earth presents the first comprehensive overview of the geopolitical manoeuvres, financial investments, technological innovations, and ideological struggles that take place behind the scenes of the satellite industry. satellite projects that have not received extensive coverage-micro satellites in China, Worldspace in south Africa, siriusXM, the failures of USA 193 and Cosmos 954, and Iridium- are explored. This collection takes readers on a voyage through a truly global industry, from the sites where satellites are launched to the corporate clean rooms where they are designed, and along the orbits and paths that satellites traverse. Combining a practical introduction to the mechanics of the satellite industry, a history of how its practices and technologies have evolved, and a sophisticated theoretical analysis of satellite cultures, Down to Earth opens up a new space for global media studies.