How Machines Came to Speak

“What does it mean for speech to be free? This rigorous, counterintuitive history reveals how changes in media technologies have transformed our answers to that question in the law and well beyond. As it shows, media technologies don’t just deliver speech; they model it. And when they do, they change the categories of thought and action through which we live our lives.” - Fred Turner, author of The Democratic Surround: Multimedia and American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties

“At the intersection of legal studies, cultural history, and media history, Jennifer Petersen’s book is a brilliant and groundbreaking study of the ways that modern First Amendment law has been shaped by judicial and cultural responses to the advent of new media technologies.” - Samantha Barbas, Professor of Law, University at Buffalo School of Law

“[How Machines Came to Speak] provides many discussion opportunities—and questions—for anyone interested in the intricacies of free speech theory. Petersen does not claim to resolve the debate but invites readers to ‘rethink some of our fundamental assumptions about speech.’ All readers will benefit from heeding her invitation. Recommended.” - D. Caristi, Choice

"The book not only deftly weaves together an analysis of legal texts but also considers the drafts of judgements as discursive repositories to help substantiate the technocultural context and historical debates that informed them. One of the most interesting . . .  throughlines in the book is in the meta-research on communication theory and research and its in fluence over legal decisions at distinct points of her historiography." - Vipulya Chari, H-Sci-Med-Tech, H-Net Reviews

"This book would be a good text for a graduate-level course on media history or media law and is an important contribution to the field. What is most interesting to me is how this book may influence how we teach about communication technologies." - Carolyn M. Cunningham, Communication Research Trends

"How Machines Came to Speak remains one of the most exciting and intellectually powerful books I have read in years, particularly in the fields of legal history and technology studies." - Alex Sayl Cummings, Society for U.S. Intellectual History

"How Machines Came to Speak is a compelling contribution to this much-needed reexamination." - Toni M. Massaro, Law, Culture and the Humanities

“Jennifer Petersen’s book is well researched and all but predicts the flood of technologies that are upending the way we write and use information.” - Samantha Duckworth, Law Library Journal

"How Machines Came to Speak sets an excellent tone for inserting legal studies into social and economic discussions of modern robotics and algorithms." - Andrew Kettler, Journal of American Culture

"Petersen is good at explaining the facts, arguments, and reasoning of the court in each case she selects, reconstructing the normative question in each case via the cultural, political, and epistemic transformations of the medium at issue." - Bernard Keenan, Technology and Culture