The Erotic Engine: How Pornography has Powered Mass Communication from Gutenberg to Google
By (Author) Patchen Barss
University of Queensland Press
University of Queensland Press
25th October 2010
Australia
General
Non Fiction
Digital Lifestyle and online world: consumer and user guides
Digital and information technologies: social and ethical aspects
302.23
Paperback
320
Width 153mm, Height 227mm, Spine 24mm
395g
From cave painting to photography to the internet, pornography has always been at the cutting edge in adopting and exploiting new developments in mass communication. And in so doing, it has helped to promote and propel those developments in ways that are rarely acknowledged. Without pornography, the internet would not have grown so quickly. The e-commerce payment systems that are now commonplace would be at a far more primitive stage in security and usability. Without video streaming software developed for pornography sites, CNN would be struggling to deliver news clips. Without advertising from sex sites, Google could not have afforded YouTube. With a sharp intelligence, dry wit and virtuosic grasp of the interweaving stories of science, art, commerce and the taboo, Patchen Barss breaks the embarrassed silence to tell the history of what's really been driving communications technology - and where it will drive it next.
Authors Bio, not available