The Resonating Interval:
Exploring the Process of the Tetrad
By Anthony Hempell
Tetrads: Past
Telegraph

Before the mastery of electricity and the subsequent inventions of the telegraph and telephone, almost all human communication was conducted face-to-face or by written word. In 1838, Samuel Morse constructed the first practical telegraph system, and in 1844 sent a message across the United States' first operational telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington D.C. Eight years after Morse's first transmission, the U.S. was wired with over 23,000 miles of telegraph lines.

In a time when instantaneous point-to-point communications are possible using a plethora of technologies, it is hard to imagine a time when receiving an instantaneously transmitted message was a marvel of genius. We are so regularly bombarded with information from around the globe that the meaning of space and distance as understood by the people of the mid-nineteenth century is gone. The telegraph was the technology which brought about an "annihilation of space," and ushered in a new age of an electrified, wired world.

Table 7: Tetrad of "Telegraph" (McLuhan & Powers, p.174)

(A) Enhancement
Amplifies the isolated incident into an inclusive dateline
Retrieved corporate or group involvement
(C) Retrieval
(D) Reversal
Reverses into dynamic broadcasting mode
Obsolesced the Addison and Steele style newsheet
(B) Obsolescence

Amplifies the isolated incident into an inclusive dateline; shifts front-page content from analysis to instant reporting:
The telegraph warped time and space along its lines; communication delay was annihilated. The focus of news and information became not so much why something happened, but when it happened.
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Obsolesced the Addison and Steele style newsheet, and the private point of view:
Addison and Steele pioneered the 18th century broadsheet of essays and opinions (the Tatler , and later the Spectator ). The telegraph obsolesced journalism as a dangerous business; it valued reporting events over commentary and editorial.
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Retrieved corporate or group involvement, whereby, for example, Baltimore was instantly appraised of Washington congressional events (1844):
Retrieval of centralized information; retrieval of empire (space-bias).
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Reverses into dynamic broadcasting mode; newspaper front page becomes a mosaic of unrelated time-based items:
Also reverses into corporatization of information networks (monopolies based upon building communication infrastructure): concentration of ownership, the "official" and "authoritative" news; "manufacturing consent."
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Introduction | The Global Village | Tetrad:Concept | Tetrads:Present | Tetrads:Future | Bibliography
copyright ©1996 by Anthony Hempell.