The Telegraph: communication changes.

Over the first four articles, it was interesting to read about the impact of some of the technology in our every day lives, radio, television, etc. However I think the technology that is most overlooked and probably impacted our lives the most believe it or not, was the telegraph. As Carey put it, “…the telegraph was the first product - - really the foundation – of the electrical goods industry and thus the first of the science and engineering-based industries. The telegraph was the first stepping stone in the technological and communication age. For it’s time, it brought about a great change and helped not only connect other parts of the world but it also helped boost the economy and allowed those from the west to the east coast communicate more effectively and efficiently making business boom.

Another aspect that the telegraph touched was the way news was communicated. Journalism expanded and was also in a sense “cleaned” up. The fact that news could now be shared cross-country forced journalists to become more objective in their approach. These stories needed “news that could be used by papers of any political stripe.” The language used in journalism also had to be “cleaned” up and standardized. The same story had to be understood across the country and the dialect and nature that might be used in the south needed to be also readable and understood on the west coast. It “changed the forms of social relations mediated by language.”