Military muzak: cold war spectra and the 21st century real-time battlefield
Military muzak: cold war spectra and the 21st century real-time battlefield
The real-time battlefield is a military goal to achieve full spectrum dominance of a warzone using a plethora of real-time telecommunications technologies. These technologies have a long history of military and corporate collaborative development in terms of controlling aural and visual spectra. In the process the achievement of real-time communications provides supposed advantages for battlefield combatants by having time overcome space. The technological realization of this strategy has profound effects on individual and collective agency as well as geopolitical decisions. To chart some of this history and its effects on the present military and civilian spheres, this article uses the technologies that helped establish Muzak as a US cultural product with global reach. This unusual example of telecommunications technological prowess also has helped construct the real-time battlefield.
real-time battlefield, Muzak, spectral analysis, telecommunications, geopolitics, Cold War
Bishop, Ryan
a4f07e31-14a0-44c4-a599-5ed96567a2e1
Bishop, Ryan
a4f07e31-14a0-44c4-a599-5ed96567a2e1
Bishop, Ryan
(2025)
Military muzak: cold war spectra and the 21st century real-time battlefield.
Global Perspectives.
(In Press)
Abstract
The real-time battlefield is a military goal to achieve full spectrum dominance of a warzone using a plethora of real-time telecommunications technologies. These technologies have a long history of military and corporate collaborative development in terms of controlling aural and visual spectra. In the process the achievement of real-time communications provides supposed advantages for battlefield combatants by having time overcome space. The technological realization of this strategy has profound effects on individual and collective agency as well as geopolitical decisions. To chart some of this history and its effects on the present military and civilian spheres, this article uses the technologies that helped establish Muzak as a US cultural product with global reach. This unusual example of telecommunications technological prowess also has helped construct the real-time battlefield.
Text
Global Perspectives Article Military Muzak final rev version
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 21 June 2025
Keywords:
real-time battlefield, Muzak, spectral analysis, telecommunications, geopolitics, Cold War
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 503855
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/503855
ISSN: 2575-7350
PURE UUID: 305f6fee-d530-4d72-9944-04374e937950
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Date deposited: 15 Aug 2025 16:32
Last modified: 15 Sep 2025 04:01
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