Making the Perfect Record: From Inscription to Impression in Early Magnetic RecordingMain MenuAboutAbstract for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U PIntroductionIntroduction to Making the Perfect Record: From Inscription to Impression in Early Magnetic RecordingNotesNotes for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U PMediaMedia for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U PAcknowledgmentsAcknowledgments for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U PTechnical InformationTechnical Information for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U PReferencesReferences for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U PJentery Sayersbecbfb529bffcfafdfad6920ed57b30ccdca5339This essay is part of the “New Media” special issue of American Literature (volume 85, number 4, December 2013). See http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2370230. Version 1 of the site is (c) 2013 by Duke University Press.
Marketing the Telegraphone
12013-10-14T18:22:29-07:00Jentery Sayersbecbfb529bffcfafdfad6920ed57b30ccdca53392493Marketing for the telegraphone emphasized and exaggerated its best aspects: clear audio, re-writability, and productive listening; fiction in "expert" texts can be just as rampant as in something like a detective novel.plain2013-11-18T16:51:13-08:00AnonymousRead collectively, almost every publication referenced in this essay contains hyperbole, dramatization, or prose bordering on science fiction.59 What’s more, most of these popular publications privilege the pleasing aesthetics of magnetic audio, stressing its noise-free character, ease of erasure, and amenability to productive listening. In so doing, they tend to eclipse or inaccurately depict the particulars of brittle wire, glitchy playback mechanisms, and isolating earpieces. And yet, curiously enough, most of them explain magnetic recording with precision. For instance, recall Reeve’s two-page demonstration in The Dream Doctor. It reads like a technology journal or patent of its time. Although such explanations do not always make for an engaging read, they do demystify aspects of magnetic recording for audiences who are unaware of the process. Plus, they trouble assumptions about the content of popular representations—a troubling that would flatter Reeve’s realist sensibility. His scientific detective stories construct and enact technologies to perform speculative functions without entirely abandoning the material specificities of their processes. This claim is not to say Reeve never stretches the affordances of those particulars. He certainly does. It is to say that materialist histories can be comprehensive without dichotomizing writings as “popular” (or “cultural”) and “expert” (or “technical”). Indeed, when it comes to learning about the stuff of media and technologies, neat distinctions between genres can be misleading.
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1media/background.png2013-10-30T16:19:36-07:00Jentery Sayersbecbfb529bffcfafdfad6920ed57b30ccdca5339AboutJentery Sayers30Abstract, Acknowledgements, and Technical Information for Making the Perfect Record, American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U Pplain2013-12-19T08:15:34-08:00Jentery Sayersbecbfb529bffcfafdfad6920ed57b30ccdca5339