In Medias Res: Comparing the Print and Digital Revolutions

To what extent are the Print and Digital revolutions comparable? Both communications revolutions are shown to be revolutionary in their own respects, although in sometimes contradictory ways, exacerbating social and political tensions. The Print and Digital revolutions are comparable primarily in the sense that they generate cultures of virtuality, systems that make the otherwise unavailable open for confrontation and use through mediation. Movable type and digital coding have reduced previously uncaptured areas of life to information that can be modeled and put to work for new purposes, exemplifying the reorientation toward fields of possibility inherent to the cultures of virtuality created by such communications revolutions.