Words and Power: Computers, Language, and U.S. Cold War Values (History of Computing) - Tapa dura

Acerca del autor

Bernadette Longo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities at New Jersey Institute of Technology. She is also the author of the books Edmund Berkeley and the Social Responsibility of Computer Professionals (2015), Spurious Coin: Science, Management, and a History of Technical Writing (2000), and the IEEE Guide to Writing in the Engineering and Technical Fields (2017). Among her other publications, she is co-editor of Critical Power Tools: Technical Communication and Cultural Studies (2006) and Transnational Research in Technical Communication: Realities and Reflections (forthcoming). Dr. Longo is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and serves on the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) History Committee.

De la contraportada

When viewed through a political lens, the act of defining terms in natural language arguably transforms knowledge into values. This unique volume explores how corporate, military, academic, and professional values shaped efforts to define computer terminology and establish an information engineering profession as a precursor to what would become computer science.

• investigates how language standardization contributed to the professionalization of computer science as separate from mathematics, electrical engineering, and physics
• examines traditions of language standardization in earlier eras of rapid technology development around electricity and radio
• highlights the importance of the analogy of “the computer is like a human” to early explanations of computer design and logic
• traces design and development of electronic computers within political and economic contexts
• foregrounds the importance of human relationships in decisions about computer design

This in-depth humanistic study argues for the importance of natural language in shaping what people come to think of as possible and impossible relationships between computers and humans. The work is a key reference in the history of technology and serves as a source textbook on the human-level history of computing. In addition, it addresses those with interests in sociolinguistic questions around technology studies, as well as technology development at the nexus of politics, business, and human relations.

Bernadette Longo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities at New Jersey Institute of Technology. She is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and serves on the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) History Committee.