TV and Domestic Space Travels
Communications technologies have promised to bring the outside world into
the home since the late 19th Century. At the time of industrialization,
when urban centers were linked to the first suburban towns, there were endless
speculations about the joys and potential pitfalls of a new design for middle-class
living which would allow people to be joined together in an electrical public
space without ever going outside. Middle-class families could, in this way,
enjoy social encounters while avoiding the elements of urban space-- such
as labor unrest or ethnic immigration -- which made them feel most threatened.
Throughout the 20th Century, such fantasies of "mobile privatization"
continued, finding their ultimate expression after W.W.II when television
was hailed as the new "window on the world" that would transport
viewers from real space into an imaginary elsewhere.
Since the 1950s, these "derealized" domestic spaces have materialized
in three models of home:
console TV; vacuum
tube; Network; Family; Rating; 1950s
portable TV; transistor
chip; Hollywood Telefilm; Network-Cable; Individual; Share; 1960-1975
computer; megabyte;
windows/disks; 'Net/Web; @; subscription; now
Spigel .Trope
K i t c h e n
T e e n R o o m