'An Extremely Useful Invention': Edison's electric pen and the unravelling of old and new media. (August 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Unwin, Peter
• Other Names: Natale Simone guest-editor.; Lesage Frederik guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Convergence. Volume 25:Number 4(2019)
• Page Start: 607
• Page End: 626
• Publication Date: 2019-08
• Subjects: Biographies of media -- duplication -- Edison -- electric pen -- electrification -- handheld devices -- machinic ecologies -- media narratives -- obsolescence -- old and new media -- predigital media; Mass media -- Technological innovations -- Periodicals; Telecommunication -- Periodicals; Mass media and technology -- Periodicals; 621.3897
• DOI: 10.1177/1354856519846790
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1354-8565

Abstract

Using Edison's electric pen as a case study, this article examines the role of media narratives in determining the ways in which a new medium is finally judged a success or failure. By challenging the narrative of the electric pen as a failed technology, it maintains that oppositional criteria such as new/old, winner/loser and successful/obsolete are counterproductive to a meaningful understanding of technical media. Instead, this article seeks to reposition and reappraise the electric pen, not as a study in failure and obsolescence, but as a site for the implementation of powerful cultural narratives that helped to define individuality and human agency in the beginnings of the modern age.