In Review: The Velvet Light Trap and Technological Change

I n the introduction to “technology & representation,” vlt’s last technology-themedissue (Fall 1995), the editorial board commented: “As the next century of technologies of representation dawns, we find ourselves in an era of radical upheaval. The dominant technologies of representation and the manner in which they are systematically organized are both experiencing tremendous change, in a manner remarkably parallel to the fissures in perception and communication produced by earlier technological shifts.” ¹On the occasion of two centennials in media history—those of radio and commercial cinema—the rhetoric of change, anticipation, and hindsight must have felt very appropriate. Yet, surveying the landscape and horizons of media technology twenty years on, would the same comments be any less appropriate today? For that matter, given the pace and scope of technological change, might we say much the same of any period in media history?

With “In Review: The Velvet Light Trapand Technological Change,” our editorial board wishes to recognize and demonstrate as much. In what follows, we draw attention to a selection of past VLTarticles that, but for timing, would have made welcome additions to the current issue. Each foregrounds the role of technological change in media history and considers the consequences of such change for business, industry practice, society, cultural discourse, and theory. We hope that readers find among these summaries and excerpts motivation to read the original articles, which handle topics as various as the effects of corporate infighting on the direction of technological change, the ramifications of cable signal theft, and medium specificity in the digital era.

Collected in this way, the articles also offer an opportunity to reflect upon the history of technological change as recorded by the Velvet Light Trap. Organized chronologically, our summaries and excerpts suggest—and the full articles confirm—the variety of theoretical, methodological, and historiographic approaches that have contributed to media scholarship, and especially media technology scholarship, since the founding of the journal. Moreover, the articles collectively demonstrate the insufficiency of any one approach in writing media history, as they engage a surprisingly consistent, but numerous, set of issues and themes to be accounted for...