A multi-author discussion of the creative industries in the digital age
The cycle of creative innovation never ends. Everyday, new technologies are being developed and sold to consumers for profit, yet that doesn’t stop big businesses from attempting to halt its production or consumption. This “cycle” that Tim Wu describes in his book The Master Switch, acknowledges the constant ebb and flow of connectivity in the […]
Growing up, I never really thought about taking time out of my day to listen to the radio. The only time that I actually interfaced with this medium in my formative years, was when my parents would listen to music or the traffic and weather report on long car rides. That all changed a couple […]
Tim Wu’s book, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, explores the cycle of new technology, in which there is always the potential for something new to come around the corner and usurp power from the current prime technology. For example, when the telephone was invented, the use of telegraphs decreased, and […]
The day before starting Tim Wu’s book, The Master Switch (2010), I engaged in healthy debate with a good friend of mine on issues surrounding modern tech companies in regards to innovation, privacy, and capitalism. I argued CEOs such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos were positively contributing to society through their respective breakthroughs […]
Recently, I came across a quotation that really struck me: “The outsider has nothing to lose” (20).These words belong to Tim Wu, author of The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires. The book outlines the arc of the information industry, beginning with the Bell Company and its subsidiary, AT&T. The reason these words […]
Information empires rise and fall in what seems like a continuous and never ending cycle, or so Tim Wu, author of The Master Switch, would argue. One truth of this cycle is that there is a constant battle between a desire by individuals or groups to regulate versus the want for an open, potentially “free,” […]
While reading The Master Switch by Tim Wu, it didn’t take long for me to question the past, present, and future of communication technologies. The telephone, radio, and film industry have struggled with competition issues and have all endured a rise and fall within their development. The telegraph to the phone, the phone to the […]
As a double major in Anthropology and Film and New Media, Tim Wu‘s discussion of the outsider inventor was the point that stood out to me most in The Master Switch. So what does an outsider’s perspective bring to the table of invention? Wu explains the outsiders perspective as having “innovative distance”, “the importance of […]
While I was reading “The Master Switch” by Tim Wu, I could not help but think about the present day innovations that are being made technology-wise today. In Tim Wu’s book, he wrote about the advancements in innovation and technology, from Alexander Bell and international phone calls to the moving picture and television. I […]
Our society has come a long way in regards to the formation of mass communication and new technologies. We now have access to incredible inventions, like virtual reality headsets or devices that allow us to access information within seconds, but we had to start somewhere to get where we are today. There were many brilliant […]
Film and Digital Media 