Seeking News,
Making China
Information, Technology, and the Emergence of Mass Society
A critical history of news in twentieth-century China, Seeking News offers a fresh perspective on the interaction of technology and politics in the creation of modern societies, reinterpreting the rise of mass politics through the lens of everyday communication techniques and behaviors.
Interlocking technological, informational, and political revolutions have occurred many times in the past—and are still happening today.
They are key to understanding the modern world.
One occurred after the First World War, when the majority of humanity was still marginally literate, living in agrarian communities where news arrived slowly, unreliably, usually by word of mouth.
How did people in these societies experience profound changes in information practices and political organization?
What was it like to live through a news revolution?
