In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

188 ARRAYS
the Upper Alps, historical monuments at Salzburg. But even in essays
with such narrowly circumscribed topics, Kisch provides running heads
that change throughout each text and that signal the topics discussed on
individual pages. He thus emphasizes the rapid pace of his observations.
The restless life of the reporter and his surface view of the world are
linked with the collective-and often repressed-fear that ultimate truths
are no longer available. By exploiting the most advanced communications
technologies [see Telephones, Wireless Communication], the reporter
is often able to address the need for specialized information in
societies that are rapidly growing more and more diverse. There are so
many European reporters touring the United States and the Soviet Union
[see Center = Periphery (Infinitude)] that some standard, genre-specific
routes begin to emerge. These itineraries regularly include, in the American
case, visits to the Ford manufacturing plants in Detroit, the stockyards
of Chicago, and the studios of Hollywood (Zimmermann, 150).
Visitors to Russia, such as Benjamin, Kisch, and Toller, never miss an
opportunity to observe conditions in the newly organized factories and
report about workers' reactions to socialist modes of production. In the
library of an automobile factory in Moscow, Ernst Toller discovers,
among the Russian classics, books by Johannes Becher and Egon Erwin
Kisch, and he is so impressed with Soviet proletarians' thirst for information
that he casts this impression in slightly moralizing terms for his
German readers: "The thirst for knowledge among the workers persists.
I notice a bulletin board which is covered with queries. Workers who
need clarification about something write their questions on a card. Whoever
knows the answer posts a card with a response. I read the following
questions: 'What does polar mean?' 'What does contradictory mean?'
'What's a hypothesis?' 'Who knows something about Sinclair?' 'Who
knows something about Einstein?' 'Who knows something about Mexico?'
Every factory, every prison, every school, every house has its bulletin
board" (Toller, 114). In a world where the need for rapid production
and circulation of knowledge becomes itself a central element of knowledge,
the market for periodical publications cannot help expanding.
There are 3,812 newspapers in Germany, of which 112 appear daily in
Berlin (Chronik, 61). In many Western countries, the information industry
has become an important part of the national economy, and its
impact on the political process can be decisive.
Although this development is particularly marked in England, France,