The Cinema Dreams Its Rivals: Media Fantasy Films from Radio to the Internet

By the middle of the twentieth century, Hollywood, formerly the one and only dream factory, found itself facing a host of media rivals for the public’s attention. In the 1980s, another competitor arrived in the form of the proto-Internet-a computer network as yet untested by all but research scientists, college students, the military, and a few thousand PC and modem owners. How did Hollywood respond to this nascent challenge? By dreaming about it, in a series of technological fantasies. This book examines the meaning and effect of the movies’ attempts to reshape the shifting media landscape.