The languages of Edisons' light

Charles Bazerman

434 pages

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Résumé

Technology is business, and dealing with the media, the public, financiers, and government agencies can be as important to an invention's success as effective product development. To understand how rhetoric works in technology, one cannot do better than to start with the American inventor Thomas Alva Edison and the incandescent light bulb.Charles Bazerman tells the story of the emergence of electric light as one of symbols and communication. He examines how Edison and his colleagues represented light and power to themselves and to others as the technology was transformed from an idea to a daily fact of life. He looks at the rhetoric used to create meaning and value for the emergent technology in the laboratory, in patent offices and courts, in financial markets, and in boardrooms, city halls, newspapers, and the consumer marketplace. Along the way he describes the social and communicative arrangements that shaped and transformed the world in which Edison acted. He portrays Edison, both the individual and the corporation, as a self-conscious social actor whose rhetorical groundwork was crucial to the technology's material realization and success.ContentsI- The Opening Scene

Edison's Front-Page Story

II- Establishing Meanings in Evolving Systems

The Public Stage of News
Finances for Technological Enterprises
Menlo Park: The Place of Invention
Patents as Speech Acts and Legal Objects
Professional Presence: Edison in the Technical Press
A Place in the Market

III- Making It Real: The Rhetoric of Material Presence

Boasts, Deceptions, and Promises
The Menlo Park Demonstrations
Fairs and Exhibitions: Museums of the Future
Lighting New York: Urban Politics and Pedestrian Appearances

IV- Establishing Enduring Values

Patent Realities: Legal Stabilization of Indeterminate Texts
Charisma and Communication in Edison's Organizations
Rhetoric of Capital Investment: Solvency, Profits, and Dividends
The Language of Flowers: Domesticating Electric Light

Caractéristiques techniques

	PAPIER
Éditeur(s)	The MIT Press
Auteur(s)	Charles Bazerman
Nb. de pages	434
Couverture	Broché
Intérieur	Noir et Blanc
EAN13	9780262523264
ISBN13	978-0-262-02456-3