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Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 Satellite Spectacular. Our World and the Fantasy of Global Presence -- 2 Satellite Footprints. 47 Imparja tv and Postcolonial Flows in Australia -- 3 Satellite Witnessing. Views and Coverage of the War in Bosnia -- Satellite Archaeology. Remote Sensing Cleopatra in Egypt -- 5 Satellite Panoramas. Astronomical Observation and Remote Control -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

In 1960, the US government and British protectorate of Zanzibar signed an agreement that allowed US contractors working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to build an earth station that would support Project Mercury, the first manned US satellite mission. This article focuses on the development of the Project Mercury earth station in Zanzibar during 1959-1964. To historicize the earth station's establishment, the focus lies on the geopolitical and sociotechnical relations that resulted in the Zanzibar station.

In 1960, the US government and British protectorate of Zanzibar signed an agreement that allowed US contractors working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to build an earth station that would support Project Mercury, the first manned US satellite mission. This article focuses on the development of the Project Mercury earth station in Zanzibar during 1959-1964. To historicize the earth station's establishment, the focus lies on the geopolitical and sociotechnical relations that resulted in the Zanzibar station.

chapter Introduction -- chapter 1 Airing: US Television's Vertical Turns -- chapter 2 Searching: Screening Practices at US Airport Security Checkpoints -- chapter 3 Monitoring: Geospatial Imagery and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- chapter 4 Targeting: Mediating US Drone Wars.

In the post-9/11 era, media technologies have become increasingly intertwined with vertical power as airwaves, airports, air space, and orbit have been commandeered to support national security and defense. In this book, Lisa Parks develops the concept of vertical mediation to explore how audiovisual cultures enact and infer power relations far beyond the screen. Focusing on TV news, airport checkpoints, satellite imagery, and drone media, Parks demonstrates how "coverage" makes vertical space intelligible to global publics in new ways and powerfully reveals what is at stake in controlling it.

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Acknowledgments -- INTRODUCTION -- 1. DIRTY DANCING. Drones and Death in the Borderlands -- 2. LAWFARE AND ARMED CONFLICTS. A Comparative Analysis of Israeli and U.S. Targeted Killing Policies and Legal Challenges against Them -- 3. AMERICAN KAMIKAZE. Television-Guided Assault Drones in World War II -- 4. (IM)MATERIAL TERROR. Incitement to Violence Discourse as Racializing Technology in the War on Terror -- 5. VERTICAL MEDIATION AND THE U.S. DRONE WAR IN THE HORN OF AFRICA -- 6. DRONE-O- RAMA. Troubling the Temporal and Spatial Logics of Distance Warfare -- 7. DRONOLOGIES. Or Twice-Told Tales -- 8. IN PURSUIT OF OTHER NETWORKS. Drone Art and Accelerationist Aesthetics -- 9. THE CONTAINMENT ZONE -- 10. STONERS, STONES, AND DRONES. Transnational South Asian Visuality from Above and Below -- 11. TAKING PEOPLE OUT. Drones, Media/Weapons, and the Coming Humanectomy -- 12. THE LABOR OF SURVEILLANCE AND BUREAUCRATIZED KILLING. New Subjectivities of Military Drone Operators -- 13. LETTER FROM A SENSOR OPERATOR -- 14. MATERIALITIES OF THE ROBOTIC -- 15. DRONE IMAGINARIES. The Technopolitics of Visuality in Postcolony and Empire -- Bibliography -- Contributors -- Index

"The contributors to Signal Traffic investigate how the material artifacts of media infrastructure--transoceanic cables, mobile telephone towers, Internet data centers, and the like--intersect with everyday life. Essayists confront the multiple and hybrid forms networks take, the different ways networks are imagined and engaged with by publics around the world, their local effects, and what human beings experience when a network fails. Some contributors explore the physical objects and industrial relations that make up an infrastructure. Others venture into the marginalized communities orphaned from the knowledge economies, technological literacies, and epistemological questions linked to infrastructural formation and use. The wide-ranging insights delineate the oft-ignored contrasts between industrialized and developing regions, rich and poor areas, and urban and rural settings, bringing technological differences into focus. Contributors include Charles R. Acland, Paul Dourish, Sarah Harris, Jennifer Holt and Patrick Vonderau, Shannon Mattern, Toby Miller, Lisa Parks, Christian Sandvig, Nicole Starosielski, Jonathan Sterne, and Helga Tawil-Souri"--

Down to Earth presents the first comprehensive overview of the geopolitical maneuvers, financial investments, technological innovations, and ideological struggles that take place behind the scenes of the satellite industry. Satellite projects that have not received extensive coverage—microsatellites in China, WorldSpace in South Africa, SiriusXM, the failures of USA 193 and Cosmos 954, and Iridium—are explored. This collection takes readers on a voyage through a truly global industry, from the sites where satellites are launched to the corporate clean rooms where they are designed, and along the orbits and paths that satellites traverse. Combining a practical introduction to the mechanics of the satellite industry, a history of how its practices and technologies have evolved, and a sophisticated theoretical analysis of satellite cultures, Down to Earth opens up a new space for global media studies

En partant de recherches féministes, cet article explore comment l'usage de drones militaires par les États-Unis a (re)organisé la vie quotidienne de certaines régions en créant une nouvelle classe. Celle-ci est caractérisée par son statut de cible privilégiée des attaques et le fait qu'elle soit dépossédée de ses droits les plus fondamentaux à travers des pratiques de « médiation verticale ». Dans cette perspective, l'article soutient qu'une étude critique des drones et de la guerre se doit d'inclure une réflexion sur les champs verticaux qui structurent, depuis les airs, la vie sur terre. Il s'agit notamment d'analyser les ressources physiques qui constituent les champs verticaux (essence, travail, terre, matériaux, réseaux, données, ciel et orbite) ainsi que les hiérarchies que leur contrôle implique. Il est certes important de considérer la façon dont la guerre des drones est régie par des systèmes qui relèvent du contrôle à distance, de la simulation et du jeu. Mais il est tout aussi primordial de prendre en compte ses dimensions plus terrestres et incarnées ainsi que les paysages et les autotopographies où s'inscrit l'usage des drones, et qui enregistrent leurs effets.