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The Internet and the End of the National Communication System: Uncertain Predictions of an Uncertain Future
Abstract
The Internet should be understood as the first instance of a global communication system. That system, in turn, is displacing a national system of communications which came into existence at the end of the nineteenth century as a result of the railroad and telegraph, and was “perfected” in subsequent innovations through television in the network era. Such transformations involve not only technical change but the complex alteration of physical, symbolic, and media ecologies which together will determine the impact of the medium.
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“The Internet lies at the locus of a new media ecology that has 'altered the structural relations among traditional media such as print and broadcast and unites them around the defining technologies of computer and satellite' (Carey, 1998, p. 34).”
From Uses and Gratifications Theory in the 21st Century (2000) · cites this paper as Carey, 1998
Citations
Cited by
Uses and Gratifications Theory in the 21st Century
Ruggiero, T. E. (2000) · Mass Communication and Society · doi:10.1207/s15327825mcs0301_02 · Cited by 2,810
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“Institutionalised communication, supported and enabled by media that help bridge space and time differences between members of large and complex communities (Carey 1998), can be seen as a part of a more general social development toward ‘modernity’ (Haferkamp and Smelser 1992), with new divisions of labour, the birth…”
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Usher, N. (2019) · Journalism & Communication Monographs · doi:10.1177/1522637919848362 · Cited by 127
Wu, H. D. (2007) · International Communication Gazette · doi:10.1177/1748048507082841 · Cited by 122
“Thus, as Carey (1998) said, the web is truly a global medium that can tackle the unmatched mission of receiving and disseminating international news to every corner of the world, narrowing the gigantic discrepancy between the news world and the real world.”
BackgroundAlternative Media: Conceptual Difficulties, Critical Possibilities
Hamilton, J. W. (2000) · Journal of Communication Inquiry · doi:10.1177/0196859900024004002 · Cited by 110
Quandt, T. (2012) · European Journal of Communication · doi:10.1177/0267323111434452 · Cited by 83
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“…services (Slack & Williams, 2000) and criticized for transforming societal processes and social structure (Calabrese, 1991,2001; Grossman, 2001), for the disruption of political unity and structures (Carey, 1998; Shaw & Hamm, 1997), and for the creation of a “digital divide” (Logos & Jung, 2001).”
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“(p. 135) Likewise, Carey (1998) contended that the Internet is creating a new media context, in which structural relations among old media are altered and a national system of communications is displaced.”
BackgroundRaboy, M. (2006) · Canadian Journal of Communication · doi:10.22230/cjc.2006v31n2a1733 · Cited by 20
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Gasher, M., & Klein, R. (2008) · Canadian Journal of Communication · doi:10.22230/cjc.2008v33n2a1974 · Cited by 14
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“We should remind ourselves that the culminating event of the communications revolution of the 1890s [which he cites as beginning the modern era of communications] came when the guns of August sounded in 1914 and the twentieth century really began” (Carey 1998, 34).”
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“James Carey, in his 1998 article “The Internet and the End of the National Communication System: Uncertain Predictions of an Uncertain Future,” offers an historical analysis of the transition from print communication technology to electronic technologies and that this technological transition, in terms of the Internet…”
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Metadata
- Authors
- Carey, J. W.
- Affiliations
- Columbia University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Carey, James W.
- ORCID
- Carey, James W.
- Venue
- Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 1998-03
- Volume
- 75
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 28-34
- ISSN
- 1077-6990 (ISSN-L)
- 2161-430X
- OpenAlex
- W2003757381
- Cited by
- 60
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 1 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 5.15
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Communication › Media and Digital Communication
- Social Sciences › Communication › News Media Framing and Political Communication
- Social Sciences › Communication › Mediatization and Communication for Social Change
- Keywords
- internet, global communication systems, media ecology, telegraph, railways, television, network era, media transformation, future of communication
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Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
