Channel Service
Markus Krajewski · Yale University Press eBooks · 2018
This chapter turns to the servants of (tele)communication networks, particularly to their relation to the channel of information transmission. The central focus here is the transformation of the conditions of communication and the replacement of the classic server with technical media, in the introduction of electricity, the telegraph, and the telephone in the nineteenth century. With the aid of yet another scientific subaltern, namely Carl Friedrich Gauss' institute assistant, the chapter evokes a key moment in the development of modern telecommunications, an event that takes place in Göttingen in 1833. The question framing the discussion is how the same event can lend itself to different views according to the various media theoretical approaches employed.