Rethinking Media Change: The Aesthetics of Transition

by David Thorburn (Editor), Henry Jenkins (Editor)

The essays in Rethinking Media Change center on a variety of media forms at moments of disruption and cultural transformation. The editors' introduction sketches an aesthetics of media transition—patterns of development and social dispersion that operate across eras, media forms, and cultures. The book includes case studies of such earlier media as the book, the phonograph, early cinema, and television. It also examines contemporary digital forms, exploring their promise and strangeness. A final section probes aspects of visual culture in such environments as the evolving museum, movie spectaculars, and "the virtual window." The contributors reject apocalyptic scenarios of media revolution, demonstrating instead that media transition is always a mix of tradition and innovation, an accretive process in which emerging and established systems interact, shift, and collude with one another.

416 pages, Paperback

First published June 20, 2003

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s a fair amount to recommend in this collection, despite the fact that there have been significant changes to both actual technologies and the discourses surrounding them since its 2004 publication. In this vein, it seems worth mentioning how dated some of the essays are – particularly those that investigate (then) new media like hot links (now called hyperlinks) and collective web diaries (now group authored blogs). However, where this collection shines are in the essays devoted to historical analogies for contemporary media transitions. In particular, those authors who attempt not only to historicize new media, but who call attention to the significant past precedents for all that is frequently acclaimed novel and revolutionary. In particular (for my own interests) essays by William Uricchio, Lisa Gitelman, Priscilla Coit Murphy, and Paul Erickson are particularly relevant. The former two suggest how new media might be better understood both by looking more precisely at old media, and also by examining the social practices that surround media. The latter two more deliberately concern books and their long pronounced death (Murphy) as well as the potential of their electronic rebirth (Erickson). In both cases, the authors make deliberate and smart connections between historical and contemporary cases. Their brand of scholarship is exemplary and instructive.

[Erica · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not boring by any means it's just... just.