Contents -- Preface -- PART ONE: Contemporary Reactions to Three New Media -- 1. "Lightning Lines" and the Birth of Modern Communication, 1838-1900 -- 2. American Motion Pictures and the New Popular Culture, 1893-1918 -- 3. The Ethereal Hearth: American Radio from Wireless through Broadcasting, 1892-1940 -- PART TWO: Theorists of Modern Communication -- 4. Toward a New Community? Modern Communication in the Social Thought of Charles Horton Cooley, John Dewey, and Robert E. Park -- 5. The Rise of Empirical Media Study: Communications Research as Behavioral Science, 1930-1960 -- 6. Metahistory, Mythology, and the Media: The American Thought of Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan -- Epilogue: Dialectical Tensions in the American Media, Past and Future -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Z.