Parchment, Printing, and Hypermedia

Drawing on medium theory, which was first popularized by Marshall McLuhan, argues that world politics is currently undergoing rapid and fundamental transformations related to the advent of digital-electronic telecommunications. Portrays the emerging hypermedia environment as comprised of de-territorialized communities, fragmented identities, transnational corporations, and cyberspatial flows; but also of plural worlds, multiple realities and irrealities, and digital artifacts stitched together in a web of spectacle. Compares the change to the parchment codex and the rise of the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages and the development of the printing press and the medieval-to-modern transformation of political authority. Paper edition (10713-7), $17.50. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.