How Television Invented New Media

203 Pages·2011·1.244 MB·English

by  Professor Sheila C. Murphy

How Television
Invented New Media

How Television
Invented New Media
Sheila C. Murphy
Rutgers University Press
New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Murphy, Sheila C., 1974–.
How television invented new media / Sheila C. Murphy.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–8135–5004–6 (hardcover : alk. paper) —
ISBN 978–0–8135–5005–3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Television broadcasting—Technological innovations.
2. Television—Technological innovations. 3. Interactive
television. 4. Convergence (Telecommunication) 5. Television
interactive toys. I. Title.
PN1992.5.M87 2011
384.55—dc22
2010035282
British Cataloging-in-Publication data for this book is available
from the British Library.
Copyright © 2011 by Sheila C. Murphy
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please
contact Rutgers University Press, 100 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway,
NJ 08854–8099. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as
defi ned by U.S. copyright law.
Visit our Web site: http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu
Manufactured in the United States of America
For my mom, Margaret Anne Murphy (1947–2007),
and for Anne Friedberg (1952–2009), my hero and friend

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: How Television
Invents New Media 1
1 “This Is Intelligent Television”: The Emerging
Technologies of Video Games, Computers,
and the Medium of Television 41
2 Is This Convergence?: Postnetwork Television,
New Media, and Emerging Middletexts 59
3 From Tube to a “Series of Tubes”: Television
in and as New Media 79
4 ALT-CTRL: The Freedom of Remotes
and Controls 103
Conclusion: Television Is Not New Media 124
Epilogue: On the Matter of Invention 141
Appendix A. Video Game and Digital Sources 147
Appendix B. Relevant Film and Television Sources 149
Notes 151
Bibliography 169
Index 179
vii

Acknowledgments
Often, what has gotten me through the more doubt-ridden
and traumatic days of writing has been the idea that I might be
able to dedicate this book to someone whose presence in my life
helped shaped me and, by extension, what I do. Such dedications
connect our navel-gazing academic efforts up to another set of
conversations and exchanges that are deeply lived and felt. There
is an accustomed rhythm and even academic industry standards
for the dedication and acknowledgments section: institutions
and colleagues in the beginning, family and friends at the end.1
This is a format I plan to mess with just a bit here.
Yet in writing this dedication I found a lump in my throat
and sentiments that were harder to fi t into words than I ex-
pected when I began this project. I have been beyond fortunate
to have the people in my life who I have met and counted on
along the way. They made it possible in ways that are innumer-
able and varied for me to write this book. I have a chronic
medical condition, and without such help I would never be, let
alone write. Friends are the people who sit with you and pore
over your work with coffee in hand, who support you through
the days when, like Charlie Brown, you alone seem to have a
rain cloud over your head, who share in your victories both
big and small. Friends—and family—are dear. They go fi rst.
This book is dedicated to two such amazing friends—and
family—of mine. During the extended period in which I
wrote and researched this project I had the support of—and
I lost—two of my dearest friends, mentors, and role models.
They were my mother, Margaret Anne Murphy, and my mentor,
Anne Friedberg.
ix