Telecommunications has had a wide and profound impact on the way governments operate. By the 1860s, the telegraph had begun to change the machinery of government, making it easier for administrators to exercise central control, and changing the relationship between nations.
Before long, the advent of fast news and mass information had also begun to make governments more accountable to public opinion.
The telegraph and telephone facilitated more centralised control over nation states - and later over whole continents or global empires.
At one end of the scale, this changed the structure of governments and ...
The telegraph, telephone and wireless also affected world society - especially the relationships between nations. For the first time, governments could talk to each other in real time through the medium of diplomatic ...