In our "wireless" world it is easy to take the importance of the undersea cable systems for granted, but the stakes of their successful operation are huge, as they are responsible for carrying almost all transoceanic Internet traffic. In The Undersea Network Nicole Starosielski follows these cables from the ocean depths to their landing zones on the sandy beaches of the South Pacific, bringing them to the surface of media scholarship and making visible the materiality of the wired network. In doing so, she charts the cable network's cultural, historical, geographic and environmental dimensions. Starosielski argues that the environments the cables occupy are historical and political realms, where the network and the connections it enables are made possible by the deliberate negotiation and manipulation of technology, culture, politics and geography. Accompanying the book is an interactive digital mapping project, where readers can trace cable routes, view photographs and archival materials, and read stories about the island cable hubs.
Nicole Starosielski is Assistant Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University.
Table of Contents
Preface. Edges ix Acknowledgments xv Introduction. Against Flow 1 1. Circuitous Routes. From Topology to Topography 26 2. Short-Circuiting Discursive Infrastructure: From Connection to Transmission 64 3. Gateway: From Cable Colony to Network Operations Center 94 4. Pressure Point: Turbulent Ecologies of the Cable Landing 138 5. A Network of Islands: Interconnecting the Pacific 170 6. Cabled Depths: The Aquatic Afterlives of Signal Traffic 198 Conclusion. Surfacing 225 Notes 235 Bibliography 263 Index 281
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"Nicole Starosielski's The Undersea Network is as expansive as its subject, revealing the networks that make global communication possible as vital worlds unto themselves. In most stories of new media, infrastructure fades into the background. But Starosielski flips the script, making infrastructure the star, vividly describing the places, the people, the institutions, and the politics that constantly work to make global communication possible. In the process, The Undersea Network offers new insights into globalization and digitization. It also teaches us how to study large and largely invisible technical and cultural institutions. Coupled with its groundbreaking digital companion (www.surfacing.in), The Undersea Network will transform our understanding of the networks that make modern media possible."
