Caetlin Benson-Allott Libri

"While we all use remote controls, we understand little about their history or their impact on our daily lives. By emphasizing volume control, channel shifting, and multi-function management, they tell a story about our experience of mass media, culture,and domestic life. Remote controls reveal the deep impact electronics design has on our self-perception and world-view. This book offers lively analyses of the remote control's material, literary, and cultural history to explain how such an innocuous media accessory can change the way we occupy our houses, interact with our families, and experience the world. From the first wired radio remotes of the 1920s to infrared universal remotes, from the homemade TV controllers to the Apple Remote, remote controls shape our media devices and how we live with them"--

Exploring the often-overlooked material aspects of film and television, this work delves into how objects influence our experiences as spectators. Through innovative case studies, it examines the relationship between media consumption and everyday items, revealing their significant role in shaping our engagement with cinema and television. The author’s original and compelling arguments challenge conventional perspectives, offering fresh insights into media studies and inviting readers to consider the broader implications of material culture in spectatorship.

Since the mid-1980s, US audiences have watched the majority of movies they see on a video platform, be it VHS, Blu-ray, Video On Demand, or streaming media. Annual video revenues have exceeded box office returns for over twenty-five years. This title examines how prerecorded video reframes the premises and promises of motion picture spectatorship.