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.
No Neat Distinctions between Genres
12013-10-14T18:22:29-07:00Jentery Sayersbecbfb529bffcfafdfad6920ed57b30ccdca53392497An Array of Publications about the Telegraphone Emphasized and Exaggerated Its Specificationsplain2013-12-26T11:36:02-08:00Jentery Sayersbecbfb529bffcfafdfad6920ed57b30ccdca5339Read collectively, almost every publication referenced in this essay contains hyperbole, dramatization, or prose bordering on science fiction. 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 Sayers52Abstract for “Making the Perfect Record,” American Literature 85.4 (December 2013), http://10.1215/00029831-2370230, Duke U Pplain83862013-12-27T07:40:22-08:00Jentery Sayersbecbfb529bffcfafdfad6920ed57b30ccdca5339
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12013-10-14T13:54:32-07:00Prose Bordering on Science Fiction6On a medial ideology of early magnetic audioplain2013-12-19T21:03:41-08:00In his analysis of the medial ideology of electronic text, Kirschenbaum (2008, 38) observes the following: “Industry leaders may have grasped the appeal of this ideology even earlier than fiction writers or academicians. In 1982, four Bay-area entrepreneurs cofounded a new company devoted to network enterprise computing. They called it Sun.” In the case of early magnetic recording, a similar dynamic emerges, with people in industry first deploying a medial ideology of magnetic audio. Importantly, however, these entrepreneurs used techniques from fiction in their own technical writing and speeches.
12013-10-14T13:54:32-07:00From Industry to the Intellectual5Guided by fiction, industry leaders often take a more critical approach to audio recording technology than academics do.plain2013-11-19T15:53:03-08:00
12013-12-19T08:18:28-08:00“Then You Need a Telegraphone” (1906)5“Then You Need a Telegraphone,” Magazine of Business 10 (July-December 1906), 710media/needtelegraphone.pngplain2013-12-26T19:48:58-08:00