It is suitable for reader s of Nicholas Carr's The Shallows, Clay Shirky's Cognitive Surplu s and Googled by Ken Auletta. Part industrial expose, part examination of fr eedom of expression, The Master Switch reveals a crucial drama - full of indelible characters - as it has played out over decades in the shadows of global communication. Every once free and open technology has, in time, become centra lized and closed as corporate power has taken control of the 'ma ster switch.' Today a similar struggle looms over the Internet, a nd as it increasingly supersedes all other media the stakes have never been higher. Yet in the past, each major new medium, from telephone to satellite televisi on, has crested on a wave of similar idealistic optimism, before succumbing to the inevitable undertow of industrial consolidation.
The Internet Age: on the face of it, an era of unp recedented freedom in both communication and culture.
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