Graduation Term

2023

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

School of Communication

Committee Chair

Joseph Zompetti

Committee Member

Andrew Ventimiglia

Abstract

This thesis historicizes and interprets the logic of cybernetics as a communication technology and how it shaped notions of control in the mid-20th century. To situate my analysis, I focus on cybernetics, the tradition within communication studies that focuses on controlling communication through the application of feedback loops to a particular system. Since the discovery and popularization of cybernetics by the late 1950s, its central logic has been widely applied to computational technology and influenced future systems theories. Specifically, my thesis employs a rhetorical examination of cybernetic metaphors through metaphor criticism to trace the genealogy of cybernetic discourses that I argue attempted to reconstitute political structures through stabilizing systems that would maintain and regulate the social, political, and economic forces of society. My thesis explores archival exchanges between Soviet Cybernetics Review, Ali İrtem, and Stafford Beer to tracing the intellectual history of discourses that employed cybernetic thinking through metaphors to re-constitute the political-economic systems internationally.

Access Type

Thesis-Open Access

DOI

https://doi.org/10.30707/ETD2023.20231004061827259852.999999

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