The New Medium
Over the course of a few years, a new communications technology annihilated distance and shrank the world faster and further than ever before. A world-wide communications network whose cables spanned continents and oceans, it revolutionized business practice and gave rise to new forms of crime. Romances blossomed over the wires. Secret codes were devised by some, and cracked by others. The benefits of the network were relentlessly hyped by its advocates, and dismissed by the sceptics. Governments and regulators tried and failed to control the new medium, and attitudes to everything from news-gathering to diplomacy had to be completely rethought. Meanwhile, out on the wires, a technological subculture with its own customs and vocabulary was establishing itself.
The New Medium
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