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Victorian media studies, history, and theory
Author(s) -
Wong Amy R.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
literature compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.158
H-Index - 4
ISSN - 1741-4113
DOI - 10.1111/lic3.12438
Subject(s) - globe , historicism , media theory , field (mathematics) , communication theory , dialectic , media studies , sociology , new media , history , critical theory , art history , literature , epistemology , art , psychology , philosophy , law , political science , mathematics , communication , neuroscience , pure mathematics
Abstract This article gives an account of Victorian media studies as a sub‐field that emerged primarily from investigations of nineteenth‐century communication technologies and the century's accompanying preoccupations with transmission and the idea of in‐betweenness. Owing to unprecedented developments such as the rise of the universal postal system, telegraphy, phonography, photography, and mass print media, historicist inquiries have proven fruitful for the sub‐field. At the same time, continuities between how Victorians (such as the journalist and editor W. T. Stead) imagined communication's unifying reach across Britain and the globe and twentieth‐century media theory's critique of this same reach have ensured the sub‐field's grounding in theoretical engagements. The second part of the article considers how alternative frameworks for understanding media beyond communication (such as immersion, virtuality, and media archaeology) are currently redefining Victorian media studies in the twenty‐first century, continuing the sub‐field's robust dialectical engagements of history and theory.