Characteristics Of The New Type Of Communication: Incoherence

Telegraphy brought into being a world of broken time attention. Its main strength was the capacity to move information, not collect it, explain it or analyze it.

The telegraph introduced the language of headlines—sensational, fragmented, impersonal. Its language was discontinuous: one message had no connection another, each “headline” stood alone as its own context.

“Knowing” the facts took on a new meaning: intelligence meant knowing of lots of things, not knowing about them.

Telegraphic communication permitted no time for historical perspectives and gave no priority to the qualitative.