. He notes three stages, multiple identification,
jurisdictional conflict, and over-determined solutions. At one point he argues:
“Unsuccessful experiments and short lived practices reveal identity and investments
of all those seeking jurisdiction over the new technology? (22-23). First, explain his
model of analysis Then, go to the Dead Media Project, find an example, and analyze
it using Altman’s model. http://www.deadmedia.org/notes/index-cat.html#pg
Alexander Russo PTA X
Altman’s model of “crisis historiography? allows us to see how new media
gain an identity through a process of where previous forms of representation exert
their influence on new media forms and their reception. When they are first created,
these new media don’t have a settled identity. Because of this, they use ways of
representing the world from existing forms and audiences compare these forms to
those existing ones (19). At the same time, different groups negotiate over the
meaning and uses for the new medium, sometimes creating conflict as each group
vies for authority (20). The meaning of the technology achieves a provisional
closure after one group or set of groups are able to exert enough power to achieve a
consensus on how the new medium ought to be used (21).
One example from the Dead Media project that stood out was the Scopitone.
The Scopitone was a video juke box described as a “precursor of the rock video.?
(Dead Media Project) Scopitones operated in clubs and bars and allowed for
individuals to view brief 16mm films by popular musicians but had only a brief
heyday (1963-1968). Economically, they drew from the model of the record based
jukebox, which allowed patrons to chose and listen to popular music. Aesthetically
they drew on “Soundies,? which were short music films from the 1930s and 1940s
that were played as shorts accompanying feature films. This is in line with Altman’s
description of new technologies modeling themselves on older ones and of users
comparing the new to already established representational norms.
The decline of the Scopiton was due to “slot machine racketeers and
censorial prudes? (Dead Media Project). The former used the machines to launder
money by overinflating the revenues of each machine. The latter disapproved of the
adoption of the Scopitone by the pornography industry as a way of providing
individualized peep shows. The Scopitone acquired a disreputable reputation and
artists no longer wanted to create music videos for them and bar owners no longer
wanted them in their establishments. Without a source of content or a wide
customer base the Scopitone went “essentially extinct,? even though their
technological basis was not superseded by any new technology (Dead Media
Project). This history shows that, as Altman notes, the meaning of the technology
was the product of a struggle between creators, content makers, regulators, and
users. Despite the attempts of its inventors, other parties exerted real and symbolic
power over the identification process. The result of this process undercut the initial
business model and the technology did not survive.
The Scopitone also made me think about the reemergence of music videos on
YouTube. In the early 00s, music labels slashed their video budgets as piracy cut into
sales while MTV largely stopped basing its programs on music video. The shift to
narrowcasting made television less valuable as a way to promote artists. However,
in the last few years YouTube has emerged as a valuable means of promoting music
through video with many of the top hits breaking there before radio or other music
video channels.