Cyberspace
erich Koenig. Born in Saxony, Koenig moved to
London in order to set up a works to manufac-
ture the new machines (1812). He demonstrated
that a cylinder press machine could take off
impressions at the rate of over 1,000 copies an
hour. On 28 November 1814 one of the presses
was used to print The Times. Its editor, John
Walter, described the cylinder press as ‘the
greatest improvement connected with printing
since the discovery of the art itself ’. As a result of
its advantage in using Koenig’s press, Th e Times
became the dominant and most influential
newspaper of the nineteenth century in the UK.
See topic guide under media: technologies.D
DAB: Digital Audio Broadcasting The first
DAB transmission took place in Germany,
though the UK was the fi rst to establish DAB
radio broadcasting stations after pilot broadcasts
were transmitted in several European countries
in 1996. The first DAB receivers were being
marketed by 1999. By 2001 there were more
than fi fty BBC and commercial radio (UK)
services. Th e World DMB (Digital Mutimedia
Broadcasting) Forum represents over thirty
countries worldwide.
Th rough multiplexing and compression, DAB
is considered twelve times more effi cient than
analog-FM for national and regional networks.
However, automatic tuning display has proved
a harder drain on battery life and the jury is
still out in terms of the quality and reliability of
sound production.
DAB+ consitutes a major upgrade, but older
transmitters cannot carry forward DAB+. DMB
is suitable for mobile radio and TV and can be
added to any DAB transmission. Digital Radio
Transmission, sometimes referred to as mobile
TV, can operate via satellite (S-DMB) or terres-
trially (T-DMB), South Korea being a major
pioneer in this fi eld of development. Receivers
are integrated into car navigation systems,
laptop computers and digital cameras.
▶See Wikipedia for full technical data and updates
on development.
DA (Defence Advisory) Notices British
government memoranda requesting the media
not to publish or broadcast specific items of
information considered by authority to pose a
security risk if widely disseminated. Notices are
issued by the Defence, Press and Broadcasting
Advisory Committee. They have no binding
force at law, even in wartime, but defi ance of a
DA Notice may incur a harsher response fromaccuracy and rapidity of feedback and control is
vastly greater, and so is the potential for disaster
should the feedback systems go wrong.
Cyberspace See also internet and new media.
Term probably fi rst used by William Gibson in
his novel Neuromancers published in America
by Ace Books in 1984. Gibson describes cyber-
space as ‘a consensual hallucination ... [People
are] creating a world. It’s not really a place, it’s
not really space. It’s notional space’. By pressing
computer keys, and by grace of a modem and
telephone line, the operator has access to poten-
tially infi nite information and endless exchanges
with other users.
According to Mark C. Taylor and Esa Saarinen
in Imagology: Media Philosophy (Routledge,
1994), itself a mercurial sortie into cybergraph-
ics, chief among cyberspace’s characteristics is
speed. ‘Power,’ the authors declare, ‘is speed’ and
the ‘swift will inherit the earth.’ Much comment
suggests that control, traditionally exercised by
governments and powerful groups such as the
transnational corporations, is shifting and will
rapidly continue to do so. Cyberspace is seen as
a force for dismantling patriarchal structures in
society and altering existing gender relations.
Fears about the posting of information
about paedophiles on the Net, of information-
exchange between extremist factions, of freely
available information on how to make weapons
of mass destruction, have surfaced on public
agendas to the point where, in many countries,
those in authority have sought to ‘fence in’ the
open prairies of cyberspace by legislation. Such
moves have prompted many expressions of
concern about the censorship of the Net.
Equally, there are fears that the major
conglomerates are intent on colonizing
cyberspace, converting the open prairie into
virtual shopping malls. Many analysts take the
view that the Net is unlikely to be a bridger
of the gap between information-rich and
information-poor, that it is failing to redress the
balance between core and periphery; and some
are of the opinion that cyberspace is largely
off -limits to the poor, the ill-educated and the
unemployed. See core nations, peripheral
nations; information gaps; regulation
of investigatory powers act (ripa) (uk),
2000; surveillance society; wiki, wikipe-
dia. See also topic guide under digital age
communication.
Cylinder or rotary press Th e most important
technical development in printing history
following the invention of movable type was the
steam-driven cylinder press invented by Fried-