Law of the suppression of radical potential

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may not meet the general notability guideline or one of the following specific guidelines for inclusion on Wikipedia: Biographies, Books, Companies, Fiction, Music, Neologisms, Numbers, Web content, or several proposals for new guidelines. If you are familiar with the subject matter, please expand or rewrite the article to establish its notability. The best way to address this concern is to reference published, third-party sources about the subject. If notability cannot be established, the article is more likely to be considered for redirection, merge or ultimately deletion, per Wikipedia:Guide to deletion. This article has been tagged since December 2007.

This article is orphaned as few or no other articles link to it. Please help introduce links in articles on related topics. (November 2006)

The law of the suppression of radical potential is an idea first described by Brian Winston in his book, Media Technology and Society: A History: From the Telegraph to the Internet. According to the law, when a communications technology is realised, its growth is suppressed through the constraining influence of already prevailing institutions and other mechanisms.

Winston shows how the law can be used as a model for describing the life cycle of many communications technologies.