Seeing by Electricity: The Emergence of Television, 1878-1939

Already in the late nineteenth century, electricians, physicists, and telegraph technicians dreamed of inventing televisual communication apparatuses that would "see" by electricity as a means of extending human perception. In Seeing by Electricity Doron Galili traces the early history of television, from fantastical image transmission devices initially imagined in the 1870s such as the Telectroscope, the Phantoscope, and the Distant Seer to the emergence of broadcast television in the 1930s. Galili examines how televisual technologies were understood in relation to film at different cultural moments-whether as a perfection of cinema, a threat to the Hollywood industry, or an alternative medium for avant-garde experimentation. Highlighting points of overlap and divergence in the histories of television and cinema, Galili demonstrates that the intermedial relationship between the two media did not start with their economic and institutional rivalry of the late 1940s but rather goes back to their very origins. In so doing, he brings film studies and television studies together in ways that advance contemporary debates in media theory.

Author: Doron Galili
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 02/28/2020
Pages: 264
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.70d
ISBN13: 9781478008224
ISBN10: 1478008229
BISAC Categories:
- Performing Arts | Television | History & Criticism
- Social Science | Media Studies
- Transportation | Railroads | General

About the Author
Doron Galili is Researcher in the Department of Media Studies at Stockholm University and coeditor of Corporeality in Early Cinema: Viscera, Skin, and Physical Form.